A Beast is in the Heart
by YelloSubmarine93
Summary: Junior year had not gotten off to a good start, sure. But there was plenty of time to turn the year around, Amber's dad was slowly becoming used to the life of a witch's father, Scott had found a new girl to drool over, and Amber was more at peace with herself and her life than she thought she'd ever been. Those were good omens, right? Right? / Part 4 of the Empty Casket Series.
1. My Spirit Talks, I Know My Soul Believes

**Welcome to _A Beast is in the Heart_ , the next instalment of ****_Empty Casket_** **!**

 **I would like to start off with a massive thank you to AshleyMarieD and Hurricane97, who reviewed the last chapter of** ** _Gods & Monsters._** **Ashley, I was thinking of reenacting that scene, but I thought the way I wrote it in the end was maybe a little more in character for their relationship, so I'm glad you liked how it turned out! And Hurricane, neither can I! I've had some basic ideas of how that's going to pan out, but nothing solid yet. I'm so glad you both enjoyed it, reading your reviews brightened my days greatly, so thank you!**

 **I'm very excited for this next chapter, and I hope you'll all enjoy it as much as me.**

 **I don't own Teen Wolf. Shock Horror.**

* * *

"Why did I think this was a good idea?" Lydia groaned as she shifted around beside Jackson, trying to get comfortable on the forest floor.

"Bonding?" I thought aloud, frowning. I wasn't entirely sure why I had decided this would be the best way to spend Scott's birthday, nor how she had convinced everyone else of that, but she had, and now we we all pretending like it wasn't horribly uncomfortable to be sat on the dirt of the forest floor as the temperature continued to drop, the roaring fire in the centre of our little circle the only thing keeping us from freezing.

"I don't mind hating each other if it means we can go _home_ ," Isaac but in, looking around for some sympathy.

"No one is going home," Lydia said, dismissing the idea before anyone could agree. "We have a nice fire, a few blankets, and a beautiful view of the city..." She gestured her hands out at the clearing in the trees, overlooking Beacon Hills, all its lights twinkling in the darkness. It _was_ a beautiful place to set up our little camp for the night, even if a few of us _were_ more than a little miserable. "We're gonna celebrate Scott's birthday until the sun comes up, and _then_ you can go home and do whatever the hell werewolves do in their spare time. Okay?"

"I should have worn jeans," I groaned, plucking at the surprisingly warm, but ultimately not warm enough, blanket draped over my otherwise bare legs. Shorts had seemed like a good idea during the mild October afternoon that we'd had, but as soon as the sun had gone down, I'd realised my mistake. Allison was the only other person here optimistic enough to share in my thinking; everyone else had left us to huddle under a blanket together beside the fire while they shook their heads in disappointment. I felt the other bare-legged girl nod beside me, dropping her head onto my shoulder and wriggling a little, emphasising her chill. Nobody paid us any attention.

"We should have gone bowling," Jackson grumbled quietly, shaking his head.

"Where are the marshmallows?" Stiles asked the group, grinning like a four year old when Scott threw them in his direction.

"What _do_ werewolves do in their spare time?" Allison wondered aloud, pursing her lips in thought.

"Shave, mostly," Scott quipped, earning a loud chuckle from Isaac beside him. I think even Sonny quirked a smile.

"I need to pee," I decided, standing up and shivering instantly. It was _so cold_. Allison quickly grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around herself more securely, smiling up at me innocently when I scoffed. "Make the most of it. I'll be reclaiming my half when I get back." She grinned as I shook my head and wandered further into the cover of trees, until I could barely see the campfire anymore. It was there that I first heard the rustling.

I didn't think anything of it, at first. There were always small animals scurrying around the forest floor, or up in the trees. So I went about my business and started to make my way back to the group. That was when I heard my name.

I couldn't place where it was coming from, or who had said it. It almost sounded like it was in the wind, coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. I spun around, my eyes wide as I surveyed the empty scene behind me, on either side. There was nothing; no person, no sound, no movement. So I turned back, deciding the best course of action would be to get back to my friends, to tell them what I'd heard. But then I heard it again, closer now, right at my ear, and utterly heartbreaking. I jumped and spun around, coming face to face with my mother, her smile soft in the faint, distant glow of the firelight.

"I'm dreaming," I stated, not doubting the words for a second, even as my heart ached. She nodded, her smile growing sad.

"I need to show you something," she told me, lifting a hand to drop it to my shoulder and turning me gently, back to where I expected to the the fire, the silhouettes of my friends. Except, instead of that, I saw a old, grey building behind ominous looking gates, stretching up high above me. On top of the gates, spilling out from between the rails, sharp letters spelt out the words EICHEN HOUSE.

"What is this place?" I asked Mom, looking away from the spooky premises and up to her. Her expression was grim.

"This is the site of many deaths," she said quietly, not tearing her eyes away from the stone walls past the gates. "It's a horrible place, one I'd hoped you'd never have to set foot in. But you will."

I scoffed. "And why would I ever need to see the inside of _this_ creep shack?"

"This place holds horrors that even the oldest witches have never seen before," she told me, finally turning to face me. "It's a special place, one that holds only misery, pain and death for anything not fully human. It's those deaths, the deaths of countless witches, that you need." She put a hand on each of my shoulders, looking at me so hard I thought she was looking into my soul, or something. It was eery. "Should you ever need guidance, Amber, this is where you come. Do you understand?"

"Not really," I admitted, unsure of what she was telling me, and a little scared as to why. She raised her eyebrows. "What's going on, Mom?"

"The witches here will help you," she said, obviously dodging my question. I shook my head.

"The witches here are _dead_ ," I reminded her, widening my eyes. She only smiled wryly.

"So am I," she responded, a glint in her eyes when I rolled mine.

"And you only come to me when I'm unconscious or drugged," I pointed out, and Mom laughed a little, ducking her head.

"I only come to you when you need me," she corrected, running a hand over my hair in a way that was so bittersweet and familiar, it hurt. "I'm always here, _always_ , but when your defences are down and you're reaching out to me too... that's when I can really be here."

"Seriously?" I asked her, a little dubious. I knew the witches had different rules to everyone else on the other side; witches sought out the spirits of the ancestors all the time. But this was something different. Despite my doubts, though, she nodded, her grin bright.

"A little pushing on my side, a little pulling on yours, and I can be there whenever you need me." I watched her face for a second, just watched while she cupped my chin, dragged a smiled from me. "Just remember that, okay?" I nodded, too scared to look away. "You're never alone. Never."

And then I woke up beside the fire, curled into a tight little ball, a blanket wrapped around my body and no mother in sight. And despite the many times I'd woken up from a dream or a hallucination with my mom, feeling like she'd been ripped away from me once again, this time... This time, things felt a little less bleak.

"You're awake, then?" I heard Stiles say, picking my head up from the jumped folded under my head to see him looking down at me from one of the fallen logs we'd moved to surround the fire. I groaned, nodding, and pulled myself up to sit next to him. "Good. You're really annoying in your sleep."

I shoved at him, otherwise ignoring the jab. We hadn't bickered much all night, and I didn't want to ruin the roll we were on. "Why aren't you?"

"Well, someone needs to make sure that the fire doesn't go out and cause us all to freeze to death," he smiled, widening his eyes at me and reminding me that this whole thing was _my_ fault. I rolled my eyes. "Plus, I, uh... I can't sleep without my pillow."

I turned to him, my eyebrows low over my eyes. "You have a _pillow_?" He nodded, his face telling me he already regretted letting that slip. "Are you _six_?"

"At least I don't talk in my sleep," he bit back, pointing at my face. "And I think you were drooling a little too."

"I was not!" I argued, shoving at his shoulder again before self-consciously wiping at my mouth while he laughed. "And I don't talk in my sleep."

"Uh, yes, actually, you do," he retorted, picking up his phone from the floor between us, unlocking it. "And it wasn't English, either. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm sure your language skills are just fine, but..." he tilted the screen so I could see it, see the definitely foreign words he had made a note of.

"That looks like a spell," I muttered, taking the phone from his hands to pull it closer to me. He nodded.

"It sounded like one," he agreed. It was long, and not a spell I'd ever seen before. Why would I be saying it in my sleep? "You kept saying it, over and over. I don't know if I got all the words right; like I said, it's definitely not English, and you were murmuring it, so I couldn't make some-"

"No, this is good," I cut him off, waving a hand distractedly in his direction. "There's more than enough here to figure out what spell it is." I passed his phone back, looking up to smile at him. "Thank you."

He shrugged it off, dropping his phone to the floor and avoiding my eye. "It's not a big deal," he said. He cleared his throat, changed the subject. I let him. "What were you dreaming of?"

"My mom," I answered honestly, and I saw his face fall in that 'oh, crap' way I'm sure the both of us have seen far too often. "It's okay, it wasn't... I knew I was dreaming the whole time, it ain't like I thought she was actually there. And afterwards, when I woke up and realised she was gone... Usually, I get really sad."

"I know," he murmured, urging me to continue with the tiniest smile.

"It felt different this time," I admitted, shrugging my shoulder and staring into the flames, recalling the conversation we'd had through the veil of fog that always seemed to accompany dreams. "I don't feel quite as alone. Like she didn't really go anywhere." As I said the words aloud, I remembered something else. "She told me about this place. Somewhere around here, I think. Eichen House?"

Stiles frowned. "It's the local mental health facility," he told me, watching as I grew confused. "Why would your mom tell you about Eichen House?"

"She said I might need to go there," I said, narrowing my eyes as I tried to remember what she had told me about the place. "She said it's this really horrible place, and that a load of witches had died there. So if I ever needed help, that's where I should go."

"Why the hell would she tell you, a witch, to go to the death site of so many witches?"

"Witches talk, Stiles," I informed him, a cryptic grin on my face. "Even after death. The spirits of dead witches can communicate with each other, and sometimes even their living family members."

Stiles' eyebrows rose. "Really?"

I nodded, humming. "They can even lend a witch their magic, for a while, if they think it's worth it. Dead witches are powerful witches. That's why they get to make all the rules."

"So, not to make you feel like crap, or anything..." Stiles started, wincing slightly. "But if dead witches can talk to their family from beyond the grave, why has your mom never contacted you?"

I shrugged. "I asked her about that, actually. She said she comes to me when I need her, because that's the only time that I really let her in, I guess. She can't come to me if I don't help her, or if I don't believe. So she just has to make the most of it when I'm sleeping or high on wolfsbane." Stiles snorted a laugh, ducking his head before we heard a light grumbling from my right, and we both looked over to see Allison, snuggled up a little too close to Isaac to be deemed entirely innocent. Then she rolled over flinging her arm across the gap in the space between her and the peacefully sleeping Scott. I huffed.

"If that's foreshadowing of how the rest of this semester is going to go, I'm just gonna jump ship now," Stiles decided, shaking his head as I giggled.

"Take me with you?"

* * *

"So, you just couldn't wake up?"

"Oh, no, I woke up," Stiles corrected me, widening his eyes. "I woke up, like, three times, only to find out that I was still sleeping. Then, when I finally _really_ woke up, I woke up terrified and screaming so loud I freaked my dad out."

"It's freaking me out, and I wasn't even _there_ ," I admitted, stopping on our trip towards the school to face him. He could tell me all he wanted that he was fine, but I could see the dark circles under his eyes, the lack of colour in his face. "Stiles, if you need to talk about it, you kn-"

"I'm _fine_ ," he groaned, rolling his eyes at me.

"Stiles, this is serious," I tried, looking him dead in the eye and watching him crack under the pressure. "If you don't want to talk about it, fine, I get it. But please don't lie to me. We need to tell each other things like this. It's important, and we're gonna fall apart if we don't."

Stiles stared at me for a long moment, before he huffed out a breath and slumped, his hands slapping against his thighs. "I can't remember ever being so scared, and I have feared for my life more than once. It was... I don't know, I've never felt like that before. I felt cold, and alone, and completely hopeless. I was utterly petrified." Then Stiles smiled at me, with so much sarcasm it must have hurt. "Are you happy now?"

"No," I said immediately, making a face of disgust. "Not at all. I mean, I'm happi _er_ , but... hey, c'mon, that was a joke!" Stiles continued walking away from me as he shook his head, but I could hear his chuckling. At least he wasn't _too_ scarred for life. I jogged to catch up, trying to apologise when Stiles stopped in his tracks, cocking his head. "What is it?"

"What the hell is Scott doing?" At Stiles' rhetorical question, I followed his frown, finding Scott jumping down the steps. It almost looked like he was running from something.

Stiles brushed past me and jumped forward, running up to Scott and drawing his attention back from wherever it was with a start. When I made it to them, Scott was trying to convince Stiles that he was fine. Given the wide eyes, the pale face, the shaky breath, I didn't believe him either.

"No, you're not," Stiles argued, despite Scott's complaints. "It's happening to you too. You're seeing things, aren't you?"

Scott frowned, his eyes still wide. "How did you know?"

"Because it's happening to all three of you."

I turned to see Jackson, Lydia and Allison come to a stop beside me, grim looked on all three faces. "Allison's been hallucinating too."

"So you're all going crazy now?" Jackson asked the group, shrugging. "Is everyone taking a stab at it?"

"Well, it didn't work out too well for Amber and I, so why not?" Lydia snapped back, raising her eyebrows at Jackson in warning. He folded his arms over his chest and pulled a 'you see what I put up with?" face, but stayed quiet.

"What happened?" I asked Allison, ignoring that lover's spat going on between us. Allison rubbed at her arms, barely meeting my eye.

"I was in the elevator in my apartment building, and the next thing I know, it opens up into a morgue." She sucked in a breath. "Kate was there."

It took me a minute, but I nodded. "And Stiles is dealing with terrifying nightmares and sleep paralysis, and Scott is..." I turned, raising my eyebrows at Scott in wait. He shrugged, very aware of all the eyes on him.

"Scott is having trouble controlling his wolf form," he answered quietly. "I keep seeing my shadow, and it's... it's not me."

"So, you're saying you can't control the wild animal that could take over at any second and kill us all?" I asked him, just for clarification. When he finally nodded, I smiled. "Great. That's great. It was getting a little quiet around here, anyway."

"We did die, and come back to life," Scott said, a little defensively. "That's gotta have some side effects, right?"

"We'll figure it out," Stiles said, cut off by the bell ringing in the distance. "But, for now, we keep an eye on each other. Okay?" He looked between Scott and Allison, both nodding, before he nodded himself. "Great. But we're late, so we should really..."

"Right," Allison said, pointing a finger in agreement and spinning on her heel, rushing off with Lydia to their art class.

The history class that Scott, Stiles and I were late to went about as smoothly as our morning did, getting off to a great start when our new teacher, Mr Yukimura, pointed out his teenage daughter, who was also in the class. Oh, and then he proceeded to tell us, essentially, that she had no friends. Which must have been absolutely mortifying. Couldn't keep me from giggling though. Not in a nasty way. Just... embarrassing dads, man. It don't get much worse than that. Stiles sent a grin my way when he caught me trying to smother my own laughter, feeling the pain, but Scott was somewhere else entirely. Scott was still staring.

I could've sworn there were heart eyes.

And as much as I would love to see Scott look at someone other than Allison like that, there was a line where heart eyes became creeper eyes, and I think Scott passed it about twenty seconds ago. So I swung out an arm, slapping at his forearm where it rested on his desk, and widened my eyes at him when he finally turned back to gape at me.

"What?"

"Way to be cool, Scotty," I said, smiling a little. "You look like a total creep. Get a grip." When Scott's face fell a little, his eyes moving in a way that told me he was trying very hard not to turn back around again, I sighed. "In the nicest possible way. Wingman style."

"That's my job," Stiles cut in, barely looking away from the board.

"Then do your job and keep your best friend from looking like an idiot in front of the first cute girl he's set his sights on in _months_."

"Or, we can focus on class for a change," Stile suggested, pursing his lips as he waited for my response. I just raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, okay, fine. I'll get on that right after I stop experiencing paralysing night terrors. Sound good?"

"Sounds perfect," I agreed, grinning and turning back to Scott. "Got your back, buddy." That's when I noticed the panicked look on his face as he stared at the floor. Stared at his shadow. "Scott." He dragged his wide eyes up to meet mine, his hands clenching at the edges of his desk. "You're okay," I told him, keeping my eyes on his. "You're fine." He nodded, his eyes darting back to the floor for a second before he forced himself back into his seat and blew out a deep breath, eyes determinedly front and center. Stiles', however, slid over to mine again, his face telling me we were thinking a long the same track.

This was going to get ugly.

* * *

"I don't know how you can expect Scott to not act like a stalker while you're setting _this_ example," Jackson grumbled, leaning against the locker beside mine as I waited for Josh so we could go home, watching me expertly spy on the new girl, Kira.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I murmured distractedly, narrowing my eyes. She was cute, that was for sure, and had the most eclectic fashion sense I think I'd ever seen. In a good way, I mean. Not like with Jeepers-Creepers-Jeffries. But that was all we really knew about her. We didn't know what she did for fun, or where she'd moved from, or what her home life was like, or how she would react to being introduced into the world where werewolves, witches and vampires lived, for the most part, harmoniously with humans.

We didn't know anything. And I didn't like it.

"Hey, okay, so we have a problem," I heard Stiles say breathlessly behind me somewhere. Jackson and I turned to the sound of his fast footsteps, followed a little slower by Scott. "It's not just a paranoia thing anymore. Scott literally just turned in our history classroom."

"What?!" I exclaimed, whipping around to face him. "How the hell did that happen?"

"I just..." Scott shrugged, not really sure of his answer. "It just started happening in the middle of the hallway, and I couldn't stop it. I managed to turn back eventually, but I had to dig my claws two inches into my own hands."

"Dude," Jackson said quietly, the expression on his face looking oddly like concern. "That's like... basic, first full moon tactics. Even _I'm_ over that, and you've got months on me."

"I know, I know," Scott sighed, dropping against the row of lockers with a clang. "But it was the only thing that worked. Which means it's bad." Scott looked over to Stiles, a heavy look in his eyes when they flicked back to mine pointedly.

"What?" I asked, a little unsure if I wanted an answer. "What else happened?"

Scott raised his eyebrows at Stiles, waiting for him to look up at whatever was so interesting on his shoes and answer me. When he didn't, Scott did so himself. "Stiles can't read."

"Well, this day took a _great-_ "

I threw my hand back sharply until I felt it make contact with Jackson's stomach, and spoke over the quick gush of air that left his lungs and the quiet choking sound that he sputtered out. Sure, Jackson was a werewolf with super-strength and whatever, but a little telekinesis to give my hits an added oomph usually did the trick.

"What does he mean, you can't read?" I asked Stiles, ducking my head and forcing him to look up from the floor. "Stiles?"

He huffed, looking up until he was staring at the ceiling for a few seconds. "I can't read," he said, confirming Scott's words. "All those dreams, where I thought I was waking up... I'm still not entirely sure I'm not dreaming. Because you can't read in your dreams, and..."

"And you can't read," I finished for him, slamming my locker door shut and ignoring the admittedly adorable way he was kicking the ground with the toes of his sneakers like a five year old. "What happened to us not keeping things from each other? We had this conversation _this morning_ , Stiles."

"I know," he groaned, still not making eye contact. "I didn't want you to freak out."

"I was already freaking out," I pointed out, raising an eyebrow at him. "And I'm still freaking out, because y'all are seriously suffering from delusions, and hallucinations, and uncontrollable werewolf turning, and you're _still_ keeping secrets."

"I'm _sorry_ ," he whined, throwing his hands out in the air before letting them slap back against his thighs. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about this, but it's embarrassing enough waking up screaming and having my dad _literally_ cuddle me back into a semi-normal state, and I can't believe I just admitted that in front of Jackson, and I didn't want to tell everyone about loosing the very ability that makes me usual to this group, another thing I can't believe I said out loud in present company, but can you _please_ be mad at me later?" he begged, ignoring the fact that Jackson didn't even blink at either comment. A sign of how far he'd come, I'd like to think; he knew where to draw the line, and Stiles hyperventilating and actually admitting all of that in his presence was _definitely_ the place for a line. "This is getting really bad, and we need to figure it out before it gets any worse."

"Allison's been having trouble with her aim lately," Jackson explained as I eyed Stiles' pleading frown. "Lydia's taken her out to the preserve to try to help her with that, so maybe we can try something similar."

"What do you mean?" Scott asked, a little dubiously.

Jackson shrugged. "You and I will go far out into the woods, away from the girls and any form of civilisation, and let it rip. See what happens. If you can't control it, we're far enough way from anyone to not cause any harm, and I'm there to help you shift back."

I pursed my lips; it sounded like a good plan. "What about me?" Stiles said, narrowing his eyes at Jackson. Ah, yes. The unwilling student of Plan-Making 101 had become the master.

"Go... do some homework, or something," Jackson finished lamely. Damn it, he had made such a good start. "Your problem with reading isn't as deadly as Scott's uncontrollable wolf or Allison's terrible aim with pointy things, and therefore is much lower down on my list of priorities."

* * *

"This is ridiculous," Stiles decided, slamming the book shut and throwing it from his lap to the floor. I sighed, looking up from the internet page on sleep paralysis on Stiles' laptop to where he sat a little further up the bed from me, his head in his hands, pulling at his hair.

"Okay, ignore what Jackson said for a minute," I said, moving the laptop off my lap a little more gently than Stiles had the book, shifting slightly to look at him properly. "Sure, you're having trouble reading. But you're worrying about that because not be able to read is a sign that you're dreaming, right?"

"I'm worrying about that because I'm a seventeen year old who has very important tests coming up in the next few months, and I have every intention of going to a decent college," he corrected, raising his eyebrows as he argued. I glared for a second, before deciding the conversation would only dwindle down into petty insults if I bit.

"Maybe the problem here ain't that you can't read." When Stiles opened his mouth to argue _again_ , I held up a hand. "The main problem, the source of this problem, ain't that you can't read; it's that you don't know if you're dreaming or not. So, maybe, we should tackle that first. Maybe the reason you can't read is that you're constantly doubting whether you're actually awake, and your mind is thinking that maybe you ain't."

Stiles thought about it for a second, rubbing a hand over his face, before nodding.

"How can you tell if you're dreaming?"

"You look different in dreams," Stiles said quietly, letting his head fall back against the wall behind him. "In mirrors, your face is different, or your hair. Your hands and feet would look disfigured."

"Okay, so just look down at your hands," I ordered, pulling myself up onto my knees and scooting closer, waiting for him to lift his hands closer to his face. "How do they look?"

"Veiny."

"They look _fine_ , Stiles," I grumbled, rolling my eyes. "They look normal. Four fingers and thumb on each, and as moley as the rest of you." Stiles snorted. "Your mind may trick you into thinking you can't read, but I highly doubt it's going to add fingers to your hands. Unless this thing gets worse. In which case, all bets are off."

"So, I just need to check my hands," Stiles said, nodding. "I can do that."

I smiled, settling down more comfortably against the wall beside him. "Good."

"But what if that's not it?" he continued, blowing out a deep breath quickly. "Sure, if I can't read, I can check my fingers and whatever and tell myself that I'm awake, but that just means that there's a reason that I have suddenly, out of nowhere, lost the ability to read simple words." Stiles bit his lip, gesturing to himself with a bitter laugh. "I don't even know if I'd even recognise my own name."

"I saw Harris try to read your name, once," I decided to tell him, thinking back to that hilarious moment. "It was one of my first days at Beacon, and I think it was the highlight of my freshman year." Stiles chuckled quietly, a much more comforting sound than his self-deprecating laugh not thirty seconds before. This one made me smile. "He got so frustrated with everyone laughing at him that he threw the folder with your name on it into the trash and made the entire class swear to never speak of it again. You know, I think that might be where his hatred for you originated."

"I did always wonder about that," Stiles admitted, smiling gently.

"Hey, so what is your name?" I asked casually, hoping he'd answer out of reflex. "Coz I know it ain't Stiles."

"What's wrong with Stiles?"

"Nothing, nothing at all," I answered honestly, holding my hands up in surrender. "It just ain't a real name."

"Neither is Rosalind."

"Hey, it's a legitimate name!"

"Sure," Stiles scoffed, shaking his head in obvious disagreement. I folded my arms over my chest and huffed, deciding to do the grown up thing and move the conversation along. "Whatever. I was trying to make a point."

"That I'll be fine."

"That your name is stupid," I corrected, smiling innocently. "But yeah, what you said, too."

He was quiet for a while, nodding slowly, before he finally looked up. "I'll be fine."

I nodded, smiling. "You gonna be okay on your own?"

"Yeah," he promised, waving me off. "I gotta go out, anyway."

I waited a beat for him to expand, but he didn't. "That was awfully vague, Stilinski."

"I, uh... I gotta go pick up some flowers for my mom."

"Are you okay doing that yourself?" I asked him, dropping a hand onto his shoulder. "Your skill in putting together a decent outfit has only marginally improved since freshmen year. I'd hate to see what you would call a flower arrangement."

"Shut up, Wilson," he said, shoving me slightly as he got up off the bed. "It's not like I'm making the bouquet myself or anything. And, for your information, I happen to know quite a bit about flowers."

"Did you become an expert when you were you doing research for your paper on the history of the male circumcision?"

" _No_ ," Stiles argued, narrowing his eyes at me as I pulled on my boots and shaking his head. "My mom was a florist, and I spent as much time at her shop as a kid as I did at the station. Probably more."

"Your mom had her _own store_?" I asked him. He nodded. "That's so cool."

"It was very cool," Stiles agreed, nodding. "But we sold it after she died; Dad really knew absolutely nothing about flowers _or_ business, and I was eight, so..."

"So you would have made horrendous business men," I finished for him with a shrug, standing up and heading towards his door. "Makes sense."

"And the next time you have a flower related emergency..."

"You're my man," I laughed, skipping down the stairs. "I'll have to remember that. Because I have flower related emergencies on the regular."

"Can I ask you something?" Stiles said suddenly, causing my to stop a minute later as I opened the front door. "It's kind of personal."

I hesitated. "Sounds fun. Sure," I decided, stepping it back so he could shut the door behind us and lock it.

"It's just... I have this place that I can go and talk to my mom. Whenever I want." Stiles looked at me weirdly, like he was scrutinizing me. I didn't like it. "Your place is two-thousand miles away."

I shrugged, a little self-conscious. "I never really went there when we lived in Nashville. Daddy and Josh did, on occasion. But, I mean... She ain't there, literally or otherwise, because they couldn't find a body for us to bury. So it was just a hole in the ground and an engraved stone."

"I don't go to the cemetery because my mom's _body_ is there," Stiles argued, smiling a little, despite the topic of conversation. "It's nice, just having somewhere that I can be alone with her. Just the two of us."

"Cemeteries creep me out," I admitted, shuddering a little. "There's just... death. Everywhere. I don't like death."

"Death is a fact of life."

"And I don't like that particular fact of life," I told him, wrapping my arms around myself and leaning against the hood of my car. After a second, Stiles leaned down beside me. "It kind of scares me."

"I think it kind of scares everyone," Still said, shrugging a shoulder. "It's just not until they're staring it in the face that they realize it. And we have stared death in the face more times than I really want to remember."

I laughed a little, looking down at my hands in my lap, twining my fingers together. "I've always kind of had this weird connection with my mom. I guess it makes more sense now, but it's always been there. The night she died I had this nightmare, and I saw the whole thing happen, like I was there. The police never really gave us any details, just that it was an animal attack, and I didn't even know where it happened until Kate showed me those files, but everything was right. The street, the wolves, the scratches on the roof of the car. I had dreamt it all exactly as it had happened. And I kept dreaming it, nearly every night until all of _this_ started happening."

"Like she was trying to tell you something."

I nodded. "That's my theory, anyway. But she was always in my head, in my dreams. I never really had to go and visit her, because she was already there."

"And now she talks to you whenever you're high," Stiles finished with a nod, drawing a chuckle from me.

"Exactly!" I agreed, holding my arms out wide before dropping them on either side of me. "She didn't ever seem the type to disapprove of recreational drug use, so I guess that makes sense." A shocked laugh burst out of Stiles at the admission, and I stood up as I grinned. "You have fun picking out pretty flowers; I need to go for a run before it gets much darker."

"I thought you stopped doing that when you realized werewolves enjoyed the chase," Stiles said, raising an eyebrow as he backed away, towards his Jeep. I scoffed.

"Please. If I can make it a year as a powerless teenager being chased by a coyote _every night_ , I can sure as hell manage a werewolf or two as a witch."

Stiles hummed, dubious. "You know I'm gonna use those words against you the next time you try to back out of a potentially life-threatening situation, right?"

* * *

I's not like I lied or anything. I _did_ need to go for a run. And if I didn't tell anyone that after I donned my workout clothes and left the house, I made my way through the town to the old, creepy building that is Eichen House, then that's nobody's business but my own.

It was exactly how I had seen it that night, but there was something else... It was like I could hear a sort of buzzing coming from beyond the gates. Quiet, excited buzzing, caught up in the wind and disappearing every few seconds, only to come back again with a force that had me taking another step back until, eventually, I was across the street and running in the opposite direction.

After I made it to the home stretch, running along the preserve, I heard the telltale crunching of leaves several feet behind me. It was light enough that I didn't worry too much; no wolf was that light on its feet. My usual running partner, however, was. I let out a little curse, pushing myself harder, faster, but I wasn't fast enough. Within a few seconds, the coyote was running alongside me, looking back at me every few seconds, before it jumped out in front of me, blocking my path. I didn't have time to do anything other than skid to a stop, kicking the dirt up under me and landing painfully on my side.

I hissed in pain when I landed, but otherwise didn't pay much attention as the coyote neared, sniffing its way closer. For a second, I had horrible flashes to those dreams that I had only that day been telling Stiles about; the canine was stalking its prey. But even as the coyote got within chewing distance, it didn't bare its teeth, or snarl at me. Just continued sniffing until it reached my face. I flinched way for a second, and then so did the coyote, backing away enough to lie beside me, lolling onto its side and huffing out a tired sigh.

I took that as a good sign, and slowly got to my feet, the coyote barely lifting its head to watch, its eyes flickering in the low light. I took a few steps backwards, feeling slightly at ease when the coyote did nothing but perk a little, before I turned and started up a slow pace again. I didn't get far, though, when the leaves sounded behind me again. When the fuzzy grey blur jumped into my path again, I managed to keep my balance, only panicking a little. If it wanted to hurt me, it's had two years of opportunities to do so. So I took a very risky chance, probably one that Stiles would chastise me for later, and I lowered myself to a crouch, watching the coyote do the same, until its belly hit the floor.

"Is this a game to you?" I asked the playful face as the coyote sat with its chin on its paws and eyes wide, not even a little contrite. I couldn't help it; I smiled. When I did, the coyote's ears perked, and I sighed again, deciding to play along. I jumped up and took off again, the loud rustling behind me enough to tell me that it was following. Well, chasing.

For the rest of my run the coyote jumped out of the shadows, launching itself into my path - or into me, in one instance, which I'm only eighty percent sure was an accident - and crouching, rear end high in the air like it was ready to attack. But it never did. It just let me take a wide berth and continue on. When I got a little more confident, I would feign left before stepping back. Judging by the coyote's reaction, this was what it wanted. It _was_ a game. This coyote, who I'd been avoiding like the plague ever since we moved here, was enjoying my company more than my own cat did. So when I made it into the clearing of our house and slowed, I was surprisingly sad. It was weird, but I felt bad leaving the coyote out in the dark woods alone. It was that damn deer all over again, except this animal was actually alive.

When I stepped onto the driveway I turned, crouching down again, my heart only slightly picking up the pace when the coyote neared. It didn't approach me, however, instead following the line of the trees further up a little, closer to the house, before curling into a slight hollow in one of the trees, dropping to the floor in a loose ball. It almost looked like it had been there before.

"Good night," I murmured, watching the coyote with a frown when it dropped its head onto its paws and huffed loudly, eyes already drifting shut. I shook my head, laughing a little at how comfortable it looked in my driveway, and made my way into the house, very ready for bed.

It wasn't until I was drying myself off after my shower that I realised it wasn't actually buzzing that I had heard. It was whispering.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading, guys. Stay fetch.**


	2. Where Hope is Left So Incomplete

**Much love and many, _many_ thanks to familiar readers and reviewers Hurricane and Ashley on _The Beast is in the Heart_ 's first reviews! I love how excited you guys get, it gets me excited too!  
**

 **I don't own Teen Wolf. Shock Horror.**

* * *

I was busy thinking about the whispering I had heard at Eichen House when I was interrupted by a loud, high pitched whistle, right in my ear.

"Stilinski!" Coach screeched as he stood right next to my desk, his head spinning like he was possessed when I made a loud noise of complaint. "What?!"

"Inside voice, Coach," I whined, tugging on my ear lobe like it would help with the ringing.

"Oh," Coach said intelligently, taking a step backwards before turning back to Stiles, who was watching him with wide eyes. "I asked you a question."

"Uh, sorry, Coach," Stiles stammered, swallowing hard. He looked a little shellshocked. "What was it?"

"It was 'Stilinski, are you paying attention back there?'."

Stiles huffed a little laugh. "Oh. Well, I am now."

"Stilinski," Coach groaned, shaking his head in disappointment. "Stop reminding me why I drink. Every night."

"What is it with him and that whistle?" I asked Jackson, who sat on my left, barely restraining his laughter at the scene.

"Oh, hey, I forgot to tell you," Jackson said, finally overcoming the humour. "Danny's having a blacklight party for Halloween. He's renting out a club, and everything."

"Oh, that sounds amazing!" I said, excitement brewing. "But that don't mean you're going to get out of watching _Psycho_ this year, Sonny."

"Goddamn it."

* * *

"Oh, my God, Stiles," I groaned, dropping my head onto the wooden table. "You can't say things like that."

"I really don't like the guy," he murmured back, low enough that my human ears could only just hear it, despite being sat next to him.

"Yeah, me neither," I said, in a similar tone, turning my head to look at him. "But you can't ask a guy if he's 'still milking' being abused his father. Even if he can be a bit of a jackass."

Not _all_ the ears at the table were human, though.

"You guys know I can hear you, right?" Isaac said bitterly, scowling at Stiles as hard as he was scowling back.

"Hi," a cheerful voice said next to me, and I looked up, blinking in the light, to see that new girl from our history class. "Hi, sorry. I couldn't help overhearing what you guys were talking about."

"We really need to watch our volume in public places," I murmured out of the corner of my mouth, smiling innocently up at Kira. I heard Stiles hum a surprised agreement.

"And I think I actually might know what you're talking about." Kira was playing with her hands, twisting one inside the other. She was nervous, and I could almost _feel_ Scott falling for her. "There's a Tibetan word for it. It's called _Bardo_. It literally means 'in-between state.' The state between life and death."

"And what do they call you?" Lydia asked, not nicely. I kicked her shin under the table.

"Kira," Scott answered quickly, before anyone else could. Lydia was too busy glaring at me to pay much attention, her eyes holding much promise for revenge. "She's in our history class."

"So, are you talking _Bardo_ in Tibetan Buddhism or Indian?" Lydia inquired, seemingly innocently. Jackson shook his head at me from across the table, agreeing with my less-than-impressed sigh.

"Uh... either, I guess," Kira responded. I tipped my head at her, shoving Stiles a little further down the bench and leaving enough room on my other side for her to sit. "But all the stuff you guys were just saying? All that happens in _Bardo_. There are different progressive states where you can have hallucinations. Some you see, some you just hear." She was ranting now, probably from the nerves. Maybe just from a passion for the strange. Both were cute. "And you can be visited by peaceful _and_ wrathful deities."

"Wait, what?" I asked, interrupting her before she could continue.

"Wrathful deities?" Isaac clarified, thinking along the same lines as me.

"Yeah," Kira said, shrugging a shoulder and smiling excitedly. "Like, demons."

A heard a quick sigh on my other side. "Demons," Stiles said, like it was exactly what he was expecting. "Why not?"

"Hold on," Allison cut in, holding up a hand. "If there are progressive states... then what's the last one?"

"Yeah, how does it end?" Jackson added. Then he seemed to think of a better question. " _Does_ it end?"

"Well... sort of," Kira said, her voice raising in the end like she was unsure of herself now. "It... I mean, it ends with death. You die."

"Well, that's..." I turned to Allison, watching her nod slowly like she wasn't having a breakdown on the inside. "That's very interesting. Thank you, Kira, for that, uh... that information."

"You're welcome," Kira said, sounding more than a little unsure of herself. She frowned around the table, at all the seemingly strange reactions to what she would have thought was an innocent bite of information. After a few seconds of thoughtful silence from the rest of the table, she slowly got up, raised her hand in an aborted wave, and left, turning back to look at us all a few times. I watched her leave slowly, looking around the courtyard, for somewhere to go, I expected, when I caught sight of Josh approaching.

He greeted the group with a quick nod of the head, turning to straight to me. "I hate to ask you this, especially right now, but I need some advice," he said, looking incredibly put out. It confused me.

"Is everything okay?" I asked him, patting the seat that Kira had just vacated. He sighed as he took her spot, turning his head to look across the sea of students, eyes landing on a particular blonde.

"Do you see that?" he asked me, eyes never straying as his shoulder slumped. It only took a second before I saw the boy beside her, a junior much larger than Josh, sidling up and trying to keep her attention. She was smiling in a friendly way, nothing more, but Josh was the type to let any setback worry him. "I'm totally losing her."

"She ain't even yours, Josh," I pointed out, raising an eyebrow when he glared at me.

"She's right," Jackson agreed, nodding at my victorious smirk. "You need to lock that down. You've been dating for months now."

"That ain't entirely true," Josh admitted, pouting a little. "We haven't actually been out since we left for Nashville."

"Are you kidding me?" I demanded, my eyes widening. He shook his head. "You were doing so _well_ , and then you just let it slide?" Josh nodded, shrinking in on himself. "How did you let that happen?"

"It just... when we got back, things were back in that awkward place that we were in before I asked her out, and I didn't really know what to do about it, and then Frankie started making a move, and now I don't know what to do, help me." He let his head fall onto the table with a thunk as he ended on a whine, Jackson shaking his head at him pityingly.

"You need to tell Frankie to back off," Jackson informed him. I scoffed.

"No, you need to help Melanie realise that Frankie is an uppity jackass," I corrected, holding up a hand in Jackson's face to block him out when he tried to cut in. "She likes you. For some reason. You just gotta remind her of that."

"But I don't _know_ why she likes me," Josh moaned, rolling his head along the table to look at me, instead of picking it up.

"Me either," I shrugged, smiling at the responding tongue poking out of his mouth. "Mature."

"You should ask her to the Christmas Ball," Lydia suggested, which perked Josh up substantially as he thought about it, but I was quick to shut that one down.

"No," I said, my tone leaving no room for argument. "You are not attending another dance at this school ever again. None of us are."

Lydia scoffed. "Sure," she said, shaking her head. "Let's just forget about Senior Prom, right?"

"I was kind of looking forward to Junior Prom this year," Scott agreed, looking hopeful.

"Have y'all forgotten what happened at the last dance we went to?" I asked them, looking around the group. "Let me remind you; do y'all want to start with Kate trying to kill all of the werewolves, Peter trying to kill _everyone_ , Derek ruining any chance Scott had of normality, or Lydia coming so close to death that Jackson _cried_?"

"You cried?" Allison cooed, leaning over Lydia to smile at Jackson as he cursed me under his breath.

"No more dances."

"That don't really help me much, Am," Josh groaned, dropping his head onto the table again.

"Why don't you ask her if she wants to go to the open mic night tonight?" I suggested, shrugging a shoulder. "Do a little serenading."

"Ew," Jackson groaned, just as Lydia and Allison smiled and awwed at the idea.

"I ain't serenading anyone," Josh said adamantly, sitting up just to fold his arms over his chest.

"Then just go and enjoy the atmosphere," I said, widening my eyes. "You love it, she'll love it. It'll be super cute."

He thought about it for a second, biting the inside of his cheek, something he always did when he was worried. Then he nodded. "Okay," he said, eyes flickering from side to side as he planned it in his head. "Yeah, I think she'll like that." Then he looked up at me, a finger pointing at my face. "But I swear to all that is holy, Am, if I turn around and see you spying on us from one of the booths-"

"That was _one time_ ," I whined, stamping a foot under the table. "And it was all Danny's idea."

Jackson scoffed. Loudly. "It definitely wasn't."

"What do you know?" I asked him, leaning across the table as I glared. "You were too busy loosing to McCall at bowling."

"We have already agreed that he had an unfair advantage," he bit out, his eyes hard.

"Why do we put up with this?" I heard Lydia ask Josh from over the death glares being sent between us. Josh huffed.

"They buy us stuff when they piss us off," Josh reminded her, to which we both smiled. It was true. "No spying, okay?"

"Okay, no spying," I promised, holding up my hands innocently when I sat us again. "Just don't screw it up. I don't like the idea of you ending up alone."

"Oh my lord, Am, for the last time," Josh groaned, rolling his eyes. "I ain't gonna end up like Norman Bates."

"You don't know!"

"I'm not a psychopath," he said, standing up and leaving me behind as I shouted at his back.

"Anything can happen, Josh!" I shook my head as he flipped me the bird over his shoulder, heading back towards his table. "So rude. But that reminds me, are y'all still coming to my house on Halloween?"

Jackson and Lydia nodded, the latter more enthusiastically than the other. "Wouldn't miss it," Lydia grinned excitedly, as Jackson just grunted.

"I thought Danny was having that party on Halloween," Allison said, frowning slightly.

Jackson groaned. "He is, but Amber has this... tradition."

" _Oh_ ," Stiles said, like he'd just realized something. "That _Psycho_ thing."

I nodded, excited. "Horror movies cannot be truly appreciated until they are viewed on the scariest night of the year. You guys should come," I offered, liking Allison's excited smile as I spoke. She nodded immediately, turning to Isaac beside her with wide, expectant eyes. He shrugged, like he was up for whatever she was up for, and then she turned back to me and continued her nodding. She had, however, missed Scott's dejected little face while she was concentrated on Isaac, the way he dropped his chin into his hand and deliberately looked away.

Stiles caught it too, and I wasn't surprised when he turned to me with his eyes narrowed painfully. "We'll let you know," he said, and I nodded understandably as the bell rang and we all got up from our seats. As I took a step back, I bumped into a solid form, and I jumped forward again, spinning around and apologizing, breathing a quick sigh when I realized it was Kira.

"I'm so sorry," I said as she smiled, holding up a hand.

"It's fine, don't worry about it," she said, shaking off my apologies. "I'm a total klutz, so I'll probably be returning the favor in, like, an hour." I laughed a little, not missing the way her eyes flicking over my shoulder and then to the floor as Stiles and Scott passed by me.

"You're in our Sociology class, right?" I asked her, and she nodded quickly, looking a little taken aback. I smiled, nodding in the direction the boys had taken and leading the way to our mutual class. "So, do you have any plans for Halloween?"

"Uh," she answered, shrugging. "Not yet."

"Good. Don't make any." I watched as Scott's ears perked, smiling. "Everyone's coming over to mine for a horror movie fest. You should come."

"Oh. Really?"

I laughed. "Yes, really," I repeated, wandering into the room ahead of her. "It'll be fun, and you can get to know everybody properly." She nodded eagerly, smiling.

"Yeah, that sounds fun," she said, taking her seat beside the window a few rows back from where I was dropping my bag. "Looking forward to it."

I dropped into my seat, taking note of the faint blush in Scott's cheeks as he sat in the desk beside me. "You're welcome," I muttered, flicking my book to the right page and knowing he wouldn't miss it. Stiles turned in his seat and shook his head at me.

"I thought we agreed that _I_ was his wingman," he muttered, put out.

"You gotta step up, Stilinski."

* * *

"Amberrrrrr."

"Josh, I'm sorry, but if you leave a girl with 'hey, your mom's pretty hot', you have no way back," I told him, shaking my head as he paced.

"I was nervous!" he defended, pulling at his hair. "I didn't mean it. I mean... She _is_ , but I didn't mean it like that!"

"Too bad," I said, stroking Poe's back as she sat on my lap on my bed. "You're totally screwed."

"She laughed," he tried, shrugging a shoulder. "Does that help?"

"I mean, maybe," I thought aloud. "Maybe she knew you were nervous, and it just came out. But I _highly-_ "

I stopped short when I heard a _tap_ from my left, and both our heads whipped around to the sound. It had come from my window. We both turned to each other for a second, confused, before turning back again just in time to see a tiny grey ball launched at my window, tapping against the glass and falling away again.

" _Romeo_ _, oh Romeo..._ " Josh murmured, a hand to his chest before he wandered over to the window, his eyes narrowing for a second before he groaned. "Or not."

"What?" I asked, picking up Poe and getting to my feet to join him. As soon as I saw the Wonder Twins, I sighed, checking my watch and seeing how late it was. "What do you want?" I asked them when Josh pushed the window up, leaning out a little as Poe _meow_ ed.

"Hey, how nostalgic is this?" Scott said, laughing a little. I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, okay, I know it's late, but-"

"We're going to find a dead body," Stiles cheered quietly, rubbing his hands together. "Thought you might want to join us this time."

Josh groaned again, rolling his eyes. "Oh, you have-"

"Definitely," I decided, smiling. "The last time you boys went out into the woods in a search party on your own, you got bit by a werewolf and dragged us all into your mess." I stood upright, placed Poe back down onto the bed and grabbed my boots, pulling them on and lacing them up as Josh judged me silently. It wasn't until I got back to me feet and widened my eyes at him with a _totally_ innocent smile that he sighed.

"Fine, I'll cover for you," he said, throwing his hands out as he walked to the door. "Just lock the door behind me, and I'll tell Dad you're practicing some black magic, or something."

"Funny," I deadpanned, locking the door after he left and immediately making my way back to the window, climbing out and walking over the roof, climbing down onto the porch railing from there and down onto solid ground.

"How are you so graceful doing that?" Scott asked me, looking down at me with slightly widened eyes as I brushed off the back of my shorts. I shrugged, pretending I didn't love the compliment.

"Several years of gymnastics and really not wanting to miss out on some pretty rad parties," I said with a smile. "A great combination for a rebellious teenager. Now, what was this about a dead body?"

* * *

"Jeez, Scotty," I said, wincing. "I'm incredibly glad you took after your mom."

He scoffed, shaking his head once. "Tell me about it," he murmured as he kept up the pace ahead of me and leading the way with the map on his phone, Stiles trailing along somewhere behind. "My mom's the best."

"He ain't gonna get anywhere with that investigation, right?" I asked them both, to no answer from either. "I mean, your dad does a pretty stand up job, all things considered."

"Yeah, but Scott's dad doesn't _know_ about all those considered things, that's the problem," Stiles finally piped up, kicking his way through the dirt. "That's why he's so hellbent on solving any unresolved case he can, _while_ he can. And if he's right, if this is supernatural, that means there's another werewolf in town that we haven't met yet."

"Well, that's comforting."

"And if it turns out to be something like triplets that form into, like, a three-headed hound of hell, I'm seriously not up for that."

"Yeah, me neither," Scott agreed fiercely, blowing out a long breath. "Especially if I can't even control my own transformation anymore."

"Okay, guys, there has _got_ to be some sort of silver lining here somewhere." They both turned to me, dubious, and I shrugged, just as a loud howl echoed through the trees. Stiles jumped, knocking into Scott and throwing the phone from his hands, down into the ditch behind them. Scott sighed and turned to Stiles, unimpressed.

"Sorry, buddy," Stiles apologised, wincing as we all heard the _plop_ as it landed in a puddle. "I hate coyotes, so much. They always sound like they're mauling some tiny, helpless little animal." I frowned, oddly defensive of the creature.

"I'm sure they're not that bad," I said quietly, earning an odd look from Stiles as Scott launched himself down the bank to his phone with ease. Stiles followed a little less gracefully, slipping and sliding his way down. I chuckled a little when he narrowly avoided landing on his ass, but pretended I hadn't seen a thing when he turned to me with a scowl. Instead, I grabbed a hold of one of the low branches of the tree beside me and jumped off of the large trunk, landing next to Sties with a pleased smile. The scowling didn't stop.

"It still works," Scott murmured, the phone in his hands lighting up his face.

"Your face really _is_ a little uneven, ain't it?" I said, narrowing my eyes and getting up close as Scott laughed sarcastically.

"Let me see the flashlight," Stiles cut in before Scott could respond, holding his hand out for the object in question. As soon as it was handed over, Stiles had the flashlight up and was shining it into our path, taking a few steps closer to the mountain of metal in front of us. I swallowed.

"So, this is it?" I asked, already knowing, and hating, the answer. "This is the car wreck in which a mother and her two young daughters were killed?"

"Well, actually, only the one daughter died here," Scott corrected me, ignoring Stiles' warning scowl. "Doesn't your dad think the other was dragged away by..." Scott suddenly stopped, clearing his throat and wincing.

I snorted. "It's fine, Scotty," I said, patting a hand on his shoulder. "You are not the only thing in this town to remind me of the murder of my mother at the hands of 'wild animals'."

Scott nodded, still looking a little uncomfortable, but tried to put the slip up behind him. "Why wouldn't they move it?" Scott asked, probably directing the direction to Stiles. "Isn't this evidence?"

"Probably too much of a pain in the ass to tow out," Stiles said distractedly as he approached the wreck. I followed, peering over his shoulder as he shined the flashlight over the deep claw marks in the metal. Try as I might, and despite what I had told Scott, it was an awfully hard thing to see. So hard, in fact, that I could only stand it for a second or two before I had to back away and focus on the mud on my boots.

The boys continued on for a while, muttering between themselves lowly, like they knew I didn't want to overhear them theorizing. And then I heard the famous last words, 'what is that?', and _lord_ , if I didn't know better, but I turned around and approached them anyway.

"What's what?" I asked cautiously, whining a little when I saw Stiles cock his head and reach into the car. Scott straightened up beside me, inching away a little to make room for me. As Stiles drew back his hand back, a pink doll clutched in his hand, I shivered. "Okay, remind me not to put on any movies involving children or dolls on halloween."

"Doesn't that rule out, like, eighty percent of horror movies?" Stiles murmured, standing up beside us with his face as creeped out as I'm sure mine was.

"I'm hungry," the doll told us, in a horrifically, robotically happy voice that had us all screeching and backing away as Stiles threw it harder than was probably necessary.

"I think I just had a minor heart attack," Stiles whimpered, hand clutched over said heart. I managed a laugh, pushing the hair out of my face as I slowed my rapid breathing, my heart rate picking back up again not a second later when my ears picked up the all too familiar sound of growling.

"Please tell me you see that," Scott said quietly, staring off into the darkness beyond the car wreck with his eyes wide.

"I see it," Stiles answered, swallowing loudly as we both watched the dark shadow among the trees growled again before taking off. Seconds later, Scott was gone too. Stiles tried to call him back, to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing, but it was too late.

"Did he seriously just run off into the dark woods and leave us alone at the sight of three horrid deaths?" I asked Stiles, still watching the spot at which Scott's form had disappeared.

Stiles' only attempt at a response was to huff.

* * *

It took all of an hour of Scott and Stiles deciding, 'hey, let's go find a dead body' before the police showed up. Even for them, that _had_ to be a record.

"Why do you insist on letting them drag you down to their level?" the sheriff asked me as I leaned against his truck, my arms wrapped around me in the cold.

I shrugged. "I'm starting to wonder the same thing, Sheriff."

"You know we're _right_ here, right?" Stiles asked us from his spot beside me, offended. "We can hear every word."

The sheriff sighed. "Are you _sure_ it was her?" he asked the boys, looking between the two of them.

"I looked her right in the eyes," Scott said, adamant that he was right. "And they glowed. Just like mine."

"It makes sense, Dad," Stiles agreed, trying to convince his doubtful father.

"But it wasn't a _girl_ ," he argued, making sure to keep his voice low, so the deputies idling around behind him didn't overhear. "It was a four-legged coyote, right?"

"Well, okay," Stiles gave in, shrugging a shoulder. "But yeah, see, that's the point that we don't exactly have figured out yet."

"Okay, but if it was a full moon, and she did change while he mom was driving..." Scott trailed off, eyes wide and pleading with the sheriff. "Anything could've happened."

"Horrible things could have happened," Stiles continued. "Ripping, shredding, tearing... Sorry." I shook my head, waving off the quick apology, and swallowed.

"It's probably what caused the accident," Scott tried. The sheriff raised an eyebrow at me. I shrugged.

"Sure, it sounds crazy," I admitted, tipping my head. "But then, weren't you, only just last month, _this close_ to being ritually sacrificed by a dark druid in order to bring down a pack of alpha werewolves, before your son, his werewolf best friend, and _his_ werewolf hunting ex-girlfriend made themselves surrogate sacrifices in order to save your lives?"

Stiles nodded along, pointing to me. "Was that around the same time the dark druid figured out that you have magical powers and poisoned you with herbs so you couldn't get in her way to make sacrifices out of several innocent people around the town that is now a supernatural beacon?"

"Okay, I understand what the two of you are getting at," the sheriff sighed, rubbing a hand through his hair.

"Think about it, Dad," Stiles cut in again, tearing away at his dad's defenses while they were down. "They're driving. Maria starts to change, she goes out of control. The mom crashes, and everybody dies."

"Except for Malia," Scott adds, while Stiles nods.

"She blames herself, all right?" Stiles continues. "Goes off running into the woods and eventually becomes trapped inside the body of a coyote."

The sheriff sighed, but shrugged all the same. "That makes sense. In a _Chinese folk tale_. Boys, this is... This is insane!" I couldn't help the pit of disappointment in my stomach. Sure, yeah, that theory was insane. But so were so many other things that had happened to us. If Scott thought that coyote was Malia, then it was her. I believed him. But that just made the looks of defeat on both Scott and Stiles' faces that much harder to witness. "I need this kept quiet. Now a word, you understand?" He was pointing a finger in both of their faces now, moving it from one to the other and back again. "I don't want anyone hearing about this. I _especially_ don't want Mr Tate hearing about this. Scott?"

I turned when the sheriff's tone changed, saw Scott's panicked face staring off over Stiles' shoulder.

"Scott!" the sheriff called again, shaking Scott from whatever trance he was in. He shook his head, asked the Sheriff to repeat himself, but my attention was on Stiles and the worried silent conversation we were having. "Oh, hell," the Sheriff breathed, the weight of his world on his shoulders. "Mr Tate."

We all turned to where the Sheriff's weary sigh were directed, to where Scott's dad and Mr Tate was approaching, the latter's eyes set on the sweater in the sheriff's hands. His dead daughter's sweater.

"it's hers," he managed, his hands tightening around the wool. Scott's dad nodded, patting a hand on the man's shoulders.

"Alright, wait here," he told him, taking a step back before Scott stopped him. His dad quickly shut that down, but my focus was solely on the array of emotions crossing over that poor man's face. It was heartbreaking.

"I'm _sure_ it was her," Scott promised a little later, after his dad had returned and taken Mr Tate home, the sheriff following quickly, and angrily. "I'm sure of it."

I nodded. "I believe you," I told him honestly, smiling a little. "Now we just need to do something about it."

"Like what, exactly?" Stiles asked, shrugging his shoulders. "How do we help a nine year old girl in the body of a coyote?"

"Well, we need to find her first," Scott figured, sighing. "And we just invaded her home, so I don't think that's gonna be easy."

I waited a beat. "It, uh... It might be easier than you think. I think we might be... friends?"

"You're friends with a _coyote_?" Stiles asked me, narrowing his eyes.

"A nine year old in the _body_ of a coyote, remember?" I corrected, raising my eyebrows. "She's been chasing me on my runs for two years now, and it had always freaked me out, but when I was out the other day, I realized she'd been _playing_. Like it was all a game of tag to her. A game a nine year old might play."

"So how does that help us?" Scott asked me, ignoring Stiles' gaping.

"When I got home... when _we_ got home, she curled up under a bush by my house. Essentially, right under my window. Like she knew exactly where she wanted to be."

"Like she's been there before," Scott caught on. I nodded. "Like she'd go there again, especially if she didn't want to go back home."

"Exactly," I agreed. "But I don't know... you were there earlier on, and if she links that scent to the new one in her den, maybe she won't come back."

"It's better than anything else we've got right now," Scott decided. "Keep an eye out tonight, let us know if you see her." I nodded.

"We've got to help her, Scott," I said, almost pleading. Even when she was just a coyote, a wild animal, I'd felt bad about leaving her out in the cold. But now... "She's just a kid."

"We will," he promised, laying a hand over mine as it lay against the hood of the car. "We're going to help her."

"You're friends with a _coyote_?!"

* * *

"I think you're right about her not going back to the den," Allison agreed, nodding her head at the back of our history classroom the next day. "Coyote's don't like wolves. Are you sure she didn't show up at yours last night?" she asked me, eyebrows high. I nodded.

"I was up most of the night, and I didn't see or hear a thing."

Allison nodded again, her lips pursed. "Maybe she doesn't want to be found. Coyotes are really smart. If they don't want to be heard, they actually walk on their toes."

"Coyotes tiptoe?" Stiles asked, his eyes narrowed. I think he was a little impressed.

"They tiptoe," Allison related, her eye roll heavy. She looked up as the bell rang, widened her eyes at Stiles. "I gotta go, but send me the location," she told him, gesturing down to the tablet in his hand with a nod of her head. Stiles nodded, and she turned at left, headed for her art class. I took my seat beside Scott's, Stiles sliding into the one behind mine, and I spun in my seat to widen my eyes at him.

"We're heading out to the preserve tomorrow, right?"

Stiles nodded, rubbing a hand over his hair. "Just don't get too worried if we can't find her. The preserve is huge; it might take longer than one day."

"Scott will find her," I said, without a doubt in my mind. Sties didn't look so sure. "He has her scent now."

"Yeah, and that's not a lot of good to him unless he's in _full_ form, something that's a little dangerous for him to do at the minute, remember?"

I thought about it for a second. He had a point, sure... But this was Scott. "He'll find her."

"You didn't have to do that," I heard Scott chuckle from beside me. I looked up from Stiles to see him smiling at Kira, the heart eyes out on full force once again.

"Do us all a favour and sort your boy out," I told Stiles, unable to stop the grin. "He's embarrassing me." A hand came out of nowhere and slapped my arm, stinging a little, but I let Scott get away with it for the time being. Fifteen years with a younger brother has taught me all I need to know about serving revenge as _just_ the right moment.

"It only took a couple of hours," Kira informed him, rifling through her bag. Scott's eyes widened.

"Wow," he breathed, his smile growing impressed and _totally_ smitten. "Then you really didn't have to do that."

"I swear I printed it out," Kira murmured, hands rustling through the papers in her bag and frowning. As soon as I saw her dad approaching her, I knew we were in for a wild ride.

"Kira," he called, grabbing her attention. She turned, a small smile on her face in greeting. "You forgot all that research you did for that boy you like."

"Oh, no," Stiles murmured as I covered my gaping mouth with my hand, clenching my nose with my thumb to keep the snort in. It didn't last long, and as soon as one chuckle burst through, I had to cover my entire face with my hands so the poor girl wouldn't see me giggling at her misfortune. Pretty sure I heard Stiles breathing out _pretty_ heavily through his nose behind me, so at least I wasn't the only one struggling. We both apologised quietly once Scott took his seat, scowling at us all the way, that oh-so-precious research in hand.

"We were just talking about internment camps and prisoners of war," Mr Yukimura continued on with his lesson, like he had't just ruined his daughters life. "There's a passage in our reading that I'd like to go over in more detail. Who would like to come up and read aloud for us?" He looked around the classroom, at the empty spaces above our heads where I'm sure he thought all out hands would be. "Mr Stilinski? How about you?"

"Uh," Stiles started. My eyes widened. Reading a passage aloud would be pretty hard for someone who couldn't read. "Maybe someone else could."

"I'll do it," I offered, my hand shooting up. "Stiles' reading voice in really monotonous. Very dull. He'll just send everyone to sleep."

Mr Yukimura did not look impressed. "Everyone participates in my class." He raised his eyebrows at Stiles, who breathed out a heavy breath. "Mr Stilinski," he said again, gesturing to the stand with a smile. I opened my mouth again, but then I heard the sound of metal grating across the floor as Stiles stood up, giving a 'thanks for trying' pat on my shoulder as he passed. I turned around as he took his place, caught Scott too engrossed in the papers Kira had given him to even know what was going on. I hissed at him, and he looked up, eyes wide and questioning. I nodded my head to Stiles, his head bent over the book in front of him. Scott's mouth dropped open, and his eyes flicked back to mine for a second, frantic, before we both turned back to Stiles. His hands were already shaking.

"Stiles?" Scott said gently as he rose from his chair, slowly stepping closer. "You okay?" Stiles' only answer was to look back down at his book a second before his knees seemed to give way. Scott rushed forward and grabbed him. "I should take him to the nurse's office," he told Mr Yukimura, who simply nodded, not sure how else to respond.

"He don't do well with public reading," I told him as they left the classroom in a hurry, trying my best to smile like I wasn't aching to follow. "Stage fright, or whatever."

He nodded again, shrugging a shoulder. "I don't suppose anybody else would like to give it a try?" he asked the remaining students, to no avail. "No, I didn't think so."

* * *

"I'm fine," Stiles said immediately after he saw me march around the corner, a girl on a mission.

"You didn't _look_ fine," I argued, my eyebrows high on my forehead. I had been impatiently watching the clock after they had left, waiting, and waiting, and the second the bell had gone, I was out of my seat and the classroom, too preoccupied to remember that the boys had left their bags behind until I had laid eyes on Stiles. "You _looked_ like you were having a panic attack over the thought of reading in front of your fellow peers."

Stiles tipped his head in acknowledgement. "See, that's the thing. Reading front of your _fellow peers_ gets a little disconcerting when you _can't read_."

"And that's 'fine' to you, is it?" I asked him, my eyes wide. His narrowed. "What did I say about telling me you're fine when you're so obviously not?"

"I'm fine _now_ ," he said, his eyes widening in honesty. I heaved a sigh, but otherwise left it alone.

"Where's Scott?" I asked, looking past him onto the otherwise empty hallway. I couldn't imagine a reason good enough to leave your best friend after an aggressive panic attack like that. Turns out, I was wrong.

"Malia's here," he told me, blowing a breath out past his lips, the doors leading outside bursting open, men and women wearing Animal Control uniforms piling in like they were proving his point. "Scott heard her growling, and some glass breaking. He went to check it out."

"She's inside the school?" I asked him, my large eyes moving from him to the corridors behind him, like I was expecting her to jump out from one of the lockers or something.

"Not anymore," the sheriff interrupted me, dropping a hand onto Stiles's shoulder after his silent approach. His tired face told us all we needed to know about how his day was going so far. "A couple of students said they saw it running across the field and back into the woods."

"Her," I corrected, eyeing the Sheriff's sigh at my response. "They saw _her_ running away."

"The most important thing is that no one got hurt," the sheriff continued, raising his eyebrows at me. "Thank God."

"What happens if someone does get hurt?" Stiles asked his dad, eyes narrowed and worried.

The sheriff sighed again, shrugging a shoulder gently. Apologetically. "Most likely, they'll have to put it down."

"Put _her_ down, Sheriff."

"Dad, there's a girl in there," Stiles joined in, the worry turning to something akin to anger. "One that you'll be killing." The sheriff ran a hand over his hair, down over his face. "Come on, you aren't back to not believing, are you?"

"You know what? I believe there are a lot of things that I don't understand yet," the Sheriff argued, turning on his son. "But that doesn't mean that everything and anything imaginable is suddenly possible."

"I didn't believe any of this was real at the beginning of the year, either," I recalled, biting my lip as the sheriff turned his stressed, but ultimately desperate, eyes on me. "I always believed that the stories of the supernatural were... myths, derived from our early ancestors' understanding of animals, and the weather, and anything else that they couldn't totally comprehend. And then Scott got lost in the woods one night while he and his dumbass best friend were looking for a dead body and turned my whole life upside down, and now I can bring plants back to life, and have actual conversations with my dead mother, and push people out of the way of oncoming cars because I saw it happen in my head moments before it really did."

"You have conversations with your mom?"

I groaned, pulling on my hair for a second. "Yes, I can, and not because I'm crazy. Because I'm magic. Because I believe in that magic. Because impossible things like that are actually possible. Everything and anything."

The sheriff stared at me for a moment, his resolve wavering, before he sighed and turned back to Stiles for a second. "Are you absolutely sure that this is a girl and not an animal?"

I'll admit; there may have been a victorious fist pump behind the sheriff's back.

"Yes," Stiles said with an adamant nod. "Because Scott's sure. Scott?" With Stiles' question, I frowned, looking over my shoulder where Stiles' gaze was, and noting Scott at the other end of the hallway, eyeing us warily. "You been listening?" Stiles repeated Scott's answering nod, turning back to his dad. The older man sighed.

"All right," he said, tipping his head in defeat and leading the way down the hall. "Let's get this figured out."

* * *

"That's super creepy, Stiles," I informed him, unimpressed with the contents of his bag, it's head in Stiles' hand. Dolls are creepy in their own right, but these circumstances definitely upped the creep-factor. "You stole a child's doll from the car wreck which she caused, killing her mother and younger sister, and kept it in your school bag?"

"Well, when you say it like that..." Stiles shrugged at Scott's equally disturbed face, rolling his eyes. "I thought you could use it for her scent."

"Where did you get that?" someone asked from behind me, and the three of us span to see Mr Tate in the doorway, his furious eyes on the doll as he pushed passed me and snatched it from Stiles' hands. "Where did you find this?" he demanded angrily, his face softening into a horrible despair as he looked down at the doll he probably hadn't seen in nearly a decade. "It belonged to my daughter."

"Mr Tate," the sheriff greeted, appearing in front of me as I took a small step back. He seemed like a pretty harmless man, don't get me wrong. But grief like that can do horrible things to good people. "I don't know how you heard about this, if you've got your own police scanner or what, but you can't be here." As the sheriff stepped forward to herd the man out, he stopped suddenly, his hand stilling over Mr Tate's jacket.

"I have a permit," Mr Tate said immediately, avoiding the sheriff's eyes.

"California schools are gun free zones, permit or no permit," the sheriff told him, shaking his head and nodding to one of the deputies in the hall, who stepped forward to take Mr Tate's arm He didn't appreciate the gesture. "You need to leave, Mr Tate. Now."

"You find that animal," Mr Tate pleaded as he backed away, his face twisting into that same look of utter anguish. "You find that... _thing_."

"So..." Stiles started as everyone in the locker room continued on their way like a crazed man hadn't just been marched out of the building. "That went perfectly."

"He has a gun," I pointed out, staring at the empty space where Mr Tate had been stood. Stiles snorted.

"Yeah, we saw that."

"No, Stiles," I stopped him, closing my eyes for a second and turning back to the pair. "There is a man with a gun. A man wracked with eight years of grief and a hole in his heart has a gun, and the animal that he _thinks_ is to blame for killing his entire world is running around the woods with a price on her head."

"He's gonna kill her," Scott breathed, his eyes widening. I nodded. "He's gonna kill his own daughter."

* * *

 **Thanks for reading, guys. Stay fetch.**


	3. In the Truly Gruesome Do We Trust

**Very sorry for the long wait. I had a plan in my head when I started the story that I would update every other Monday, and I've had this chapter waiting to be published for weeks, but I hadn't even started the next chapter until recently, because I had no motivation to and was completely focused on my original writing that I'm doing, and I don't like publishing chapters until I have a bit of a head start on the next one. However, I figured you'd waited long enough, so I'm publishing this now, regardless of my progress, or lack thereof, with the next chapter. Onto the reviews!**

 **Hurricane, I couldn't have loved your review more. I have plans in mind, and from your comment, I can assume you'll appreciate how the relationship between Amber and Malia pans out. And Ashley, that is now my favourite word in the English language. I love you both dearly, and I'm really grateful for your comments! And to the Guest, hi! I am literally going to print out your review, frame it, and put it on my bedroom wall, it was the incredible. Definitely boosted my confidence and my motivation, so this one's for you!**

 **I don't own Teen Wolf. Shock Horror.**

* * *

I was tending to the Vervain in my yard the next day, minding my own business, when I heard the first gunshot. I had swung around sharply, trying to decipher where it had come from, when I heard another. It was as I heard that second shot that I knew what it meant. I was right. Mr Tate was hunting his own daughter.

Several minutes later, and I was still running through the preserve, following the sounds of gunshots ringing through the air, calling out Malia's name. I didn't know if she could hear me. I didn't know if she would respond to her own name even if she could. But, apparently, she could, because the next noise I heard was not one of the gunshots that seemed to be getting closer but rustling from a little way up the path.

"Malia?"

With another shake of the leaves, she poked her snout out, sniffed the air, and finally pushed through out into the open, something pink hanging limp from her mouth. I breathe a loud sigh of relief and crouched down, eye-level with the coyote.

"You have no idea how good it is to see you," I told her, laughing quietly.

Malia came closer again, sniffing at the air around me, until she dropped the doll in her mouth to the ground between us. The same doll that Stiles had decided to steal. The same doll that Mr Tate had taken back.

"Is this your doll?" I asked her. "I'm sorry my friend stole it. He does strange things sometimes, but at least you have it back now. Although, I'm sure that ain't a lot of comfort when your own father is following you with a rifle. And I'm having a full blown conversation with an animal. Sorry, a girl trapped inside of an animal. But that ain't much better."

I huffed, reaching down to pat at Malia's head. She seemed to enjoy that for a second, before her ears picked up, and she took a step backwards. She growled at something behind me, and when I heard the heavy crunch of leaves from that direction, I was quick to my feet.

"Mr Tate," I greeted, a little breathless. He didn't seem to register me, or my words. All he saw was the animal that he believed had killed his family, his heart, stood not two feet from me. I lifted a hand and tried to seem as nonthreatening as I could. "You don't want to do that."

"You shouldn't be out here," he said in way of reply. "It's dangerous out here."

"It certainly is when you have a big gun in your hands, Mr Tate."

"You shouldn't be out here," he said again, a little less steady this time. My phone started ringing from its place in my hand, but I didn't want to look away form Mr Tate. Not with his hands shaking like they were. I lifted the phone to my ear, swallowing hard.

"Hello?"

"Amber, listen, it's not Malia's doll," Stiles' rushed voice told me. "It's her little sister's. She just wants to take it back to the site of the wreck, like... like you would take flowers to a grave." I nodded. That made sense. "She broke into the Tate house and stole the doll back."

"I know."

"I think she might be headed... Wait. What do you mean, you know?"

"I mean I know," I laughed. "I'm currently attending what I will loosely refer to as a family reunion."

"What are you..." Stiles went silent for a second, then swore under his breath. "Tate's there."

The man in question took a step forward, and I took one back, closer to Malia and further in between the girl and the gun. They both growled.

"I have to go," I told Stiles, hanging up before he could finish his argument. "Mr Tate, listen..."

"That thing killed my family."

"It wasn't like that, Mr Tate," I tried, shaking my head softly. "It was an accident."

"It was an animal attack. That _thing_... my girls..."

"I get it, Mr Tate, I do," I said, blowing out a breath. "Sort of, anyway. I lost my mom a couple of years ago in a similar incident."

It wasn't a _total_ lie.

He finally looked up from the barrel of his rifle, his eyes wide and so filled with grief that my heart ached. "Then you understand why I need to do this."

"I did," I admitted, shrugging a shoulder. And then Scott McCall stumbled into my yard, and into my life. "And then I realised that no amount of revenge would bring her back." His eyes settled back on the coyote behind my legs, the doll at my feet. This time, they looked a little less enraged. "Killing her is not going to bring your girls back. I can promise you that."

He nodded slightly. "You're right," he said, those words causing my eyes to drift shut on a quick breath. And he tightened his grip on the rifle. "But it would make me feel a hell of a lot-"

He jolted, his shoulder jerking forward as he frowned, and then, with no more than the softest noise escaping from his mouth, he fell to the floor with a crash, a small dart sticking out from back. I choked back a laugh, and looked up to where the dart must have come from. Somewhere, in amongst those trees, Allison was probably passed out from relief.

I dropped to the floor again to pick up the doll and turned to return it to Malia, but my heart sunk somewhere around my stomach when I saw the wide, empty preserve behind me.

On the bright side, at least she wasn't being hunted anymore. By her vigilante of a father, at least. Animal control was another story.

* * *

It was Scott's roar that had me turning in my path back to the house and towards the shiver-inducing sound in a hurry. I didn't know where I was going, but more eerily, I didn't know how I knew where to go. It was like I was following the echoing of the roar, the vibrations in the air, like a trail of breadcrumbs. I could still hear it, ringing inside my head, when I stopped so fast at the sight in front of me that I had to hang onto the thin trunk of a tree to keep myself upright.

Scott McCall, an arm around a very dirty, very naked girl as he tried to help her up, and blushing.

Despite the circumstances, I had to stifle a laugh.

"Thank god," Scott breathed, looking up at me with wide, embarrassed eyes. "Can you..."

"I got it," I nodded, smiling a little. At my words, Malia's head shot up, her eyes searching for mine. I raised a hand slightly. "Hi, Malia. I'm Amber." She nodded, her gaze flickering from me to Scott and back again. I pulled my cardigan off my shoulders, thankful for the long sleeved dress I wore under it, and wandered over, placing it over her shoulders. She lifted a hand, and pulled it closer to her, weaving her arms through the sleeves. "I'll bet it's not as warm as a fur coat, huh?" Her lips quirked a little. Scott's snort was outright.

We managed to half lead, half drag Malia out through the woods, until we finally reached my house, where Scott had called Stiles and told him to meet us there. I would say that my dad was surprised to hear that the girl on his porch was a coyote not ten minutes ago, but 'surprised' doesn't quite seem to cut it.

Stiles arrived with his dad, Lydia and Jackson a few minutes after we did, and Scott went outside to try to keep the Sheriff from having too much of a heart attack.

"Scott thought it best if he and Jackson waited outside for a minute," he told me when he finally made it in, Stiles and Lydia peeping curiously over his shoulder until I shooed them away with a wave of a hand from my seat next to Malia on the couch. "They didn't want to overwhelm her with... their scents," he finished lamely, still looking unsure of the whole thing. "So, uh... This is Malia."

I nodded. "Malia, this is Sheriff Stilinski." She nodded again, letting us know she recognized him.

"Why is her hair wet?"

"She had a bath," I informed him, shrugging a shoulder when he raised an eyebrow. "She's been out in the forest for eight years. Who wouldn't want a bath after that?" The sheriff sighed, crouching down in front of Malia and smiling. I felt her relax a little beside me, her shoulders softening, just a touch.

"How are you feeling?" he asked her, widening his eyes a little. "Are you feeling alright? Do we need to take you to the hospital?" Malia shook her head, her limp hair shaking slightly. "Are you sure?" She nodded, and then surprised me by managing to croak out a single, teary word.

"Home."

"You want to go home?" the sheriff asked, looking at me in the same shock. Malia nodded again, adamant. The sheriff laughed a little in his bewilderment, but tipped his head in acceptance anyway. "Alright. Let's get you home." Malia smiled, and stood up quickly, eager to get going. The sheriff started leading the way out, but turned back when he'd reached the hall and realized Malia hadn't followed. "What is it?"

Malia turned back to me, pulling my cardigan closer to her, despite the jeans and top she worn now wore under it, and fiddling with the sleeves.

"She wants you to go with her," Stiles supplied from beside his dad. Malia nodded quickly, sparing a grateful glance Stiles' way, and I couldn't help but smile. She didn't look like the little girl in the photo, but right then, she looked so incredibly young and innocent, it made me want to wrap her up in all the blankets in the world and protect her from all the evil that waited outside.

I got up from the couch and followed the sheriff and Stiles to the door, Malia at my side. She didn't say another word on the car ride over to the Tate house, or try to communicate with any of us. Instead, she just stared out the window, watching the world pass by in a sort of trance. I was a little surprised when she got into the truck so easily, given her last experience in one, but she didn't blink as she hopped in, slamming the door shut behind her. Maybe it was the shock that turning back to a human would undoubtedly bring, or the excitement of seeing her father again, without a gun in his hand and a vendetta against her. Either way, I didn't worry as she shifted around, almost bouncing as we neared her street.

"Okay, you guys wait here," the sheriff ordered before climbing out of the truck, giving one last stern look at Stiles, like he was expecting his son to disobey. He knew Stiles too well.

Malia turned to me and smiled again as the sheriff reached her door and held it open for her, waiting. I smiled back and dropped my hand over hers, squeezing a little, until she gently pulled hers out from under mine and slid from her seat, the door shutting firmly behind her. Stiles and I watched them approach the house and the resulting emotional exchange in silence.

Well, for a while, at least.

"Are you crying?"

"Shut up, Stilinski," I yelled, sniffing. "It's sad and happy all at once, and I don't know how to cope with that, okay?" I slumped back against my seat, wiping under my eye and ignoring Stiles' snort, watching the bitterly-sweet small reunion on the porch.

"Okay, so, listen," Stiles started, turning in his seat a little. "I know you like to think you're indestructible and all-"

"If you're gonna give me a lecture about my encounter with Mr Tate earlier on, can we do it later?" I asked, frowning. "I'm feeling a little emotionally unstable right now."

"You can't just put yourself between a crazed hunter and his target."

"Or a father and his lost daughter?" I countered, raising my eyebrows. Stiles sighed. "It ain't like he was gonna shoot me."

"We don't know that," Stiles argued. "And you can't heal from bullet wounds, okay? If you get shot, you bleed and/or die like a human does, not like Scott."

"I know that, Stiles." I sighed, my head lolling around against the headrest. "But it don't make me wanna help any less. And it ain't like you can say that without being a total hypocrite."

"Yeah, sure, I know I'm a hypocrite," Stiles admitted, shrugging and turning back to watch his dad out the window. "And I will probably continue to be until the day that I die."

"Does that mean you're going to keep lecturing me until... What?" I cut myself short, leaning forward and peering over Stiles' shoulder when I heard his quick intake of breath. "What is it?"

"The mirror," he said, eyeing it closely before laughing. "The writing. I can read it."

My eyes widened. My smile did too. "You can read?"

"I can read."

* * *

"I can't believe you're making me do this," Jackson groaned as he narrowly avoided another freshman running down the hallway. I grinned.

"C'mon, Sonny," I tried, bringing out the puppy eyes. "You know how much I love Halloween. And, plus, as a member of the Spirit Squad, it is my duty to attend and help execute this sort of thing. And as my best friend-"

"It's my duty to accompany you, yada yada, I know." He sighed. "I just don't get it. Why Halloween? Why couldn't Christmas be your favourite time of year?"

I shrugged my shoulders, smiling at the success that was Mischief Night. "I guess it's just in my DNA," I pondered aloud. I spun around, wriggling my fingers in his face. " _Bubble bubble, toil and trouble_ , and all that."

Jackson groaned again. I drowned it out with a giggle.

* * *

"So, are you still on for tomorrow night?" I asked Kira in the hallway the next morning. Everyone was going crazy, hence the toilet paper thrown across the lockers and covering the floor, so I almost had to shout over the noise just be heard. She smiled, biting her lip a little. "Before you ask; yes, Scott is going."

She cringed.

"I hate my dad," she whined, earning a chuckle from me. "But I guess I don't have any reason to say no, huh?"

"I wouldn't allow it even if you did," I told her, before spinning around and leaving her at her locker.

Econ was the first class of the day, and one that I was looking forward to. I would bet my car that Coach, however, was not. See, the wonder twins have a Mischief Night tradition, one that originated long before I came to town, but one that, I'm sure, will continue until they graduate. Maybe even after that. They'll probably still be doing it when they're forty and have their own delinquent children.

I took my seat behind Stiles, watching the two warily as they grinned at each other excitedly. I think Stiles was actually vibrating with the anticipation.

"So, what did y'all get up to last night?"

Stiles shrugged, throwing Scott a pathetic attempt at a confused look. "I don't know what you're talking about."

I rolled my eyes. "Don't think I didn't see both of y'all loitering outside Coach's office last night," I tutted, ignoring Stiles' snort. "You know it's his birthday, right? You torture him, every year, on his _birthday._ "

"Oh, we know," Stiles nodded, smiling creepily. "And, one day, when he's old and boring, he'll thank us for these days."

"I'm sure," I muttered, almost completely drowned out by the yelling and cursing that came from the next room. Stiles rubbed his hands together eagerly as Scott's mouth dropped open in what appeared to be delightful surprise, just as Coach slammed the door leading to his office open and stormed into the room.

"Mischief night, devil's night..." Coach bit out, pacing up and down the front of the room, glaring at anyone who dared make eye contact. "I don't care what you call it. You little punks are evil." I heard loud laughter from a few rows back, and Coach's eyes immediately jumped up and pinned the poor girl with a stare so crazed I thought his eyes were about to pop out of his head. "You think it's funny every Halloween my house gets egged? A man's house is supposed to be his castle. Mine's a freaking omelet!" Amid giggles around the classroom, Coach turned to start the lesson when something caught his eye. "Oh, this," he said as he picked up the festively wrapped birthday present sitting on his desk, ignoring the card completely and holding the box in the air, looking very unimpressed. "We're gonna do this again? I don't think so." With those last words, he dropped the box to the ground, and stamped a foot down onto it, the contents smashing into thousands of pieces.

"Was that...?"

"That wasn't us," Scott finished for me, looking down at the shards of the _No.1 Coach_ mug on the floor. I turned to my left, and saw Greenberg sulking in the corner. I snorted.

* * *

"What is up with you today?" Allison asked me as she leaned against the locker next to mine, watching me with narrowed eyes. "You're acting _pretty_ shady. Did you steal something?"

"I just have this weird feeling," I told her, trying my hardest to shake it off. "The hairs on the back of my neck are tingling, like, constantly."

"Like someone's watching you?"

I shrugged a shoulder. "Maybe. Or something's coming."

"No," Allison said immediately, standing up straight and shaking her head. "No. I don't like your witch instincts, and we've been having a good couple of weeks, god damn it."

"I ain't saying it's any witch instinct, but-"

"No buts," Allison ordered, pointing a finger at me sternly. "I mean it. Don't ruin this dream for me. What are the cops doing here?"

My head swung around at Allison's whining comment, just as Scott's dad marched down the hallway surrounded by deputies and other men in suits. From the look on their faces, I feel I could safely assume that this wasn't Bring Your Parent to School day.

"We should find Stiles," I decided, slamming the locker door shut and taking off in the direction that Detective McCall had come from.

"Do you think this has something to do with Malia?" Allison asked me, looking down at me with worry in her eyes.

"I really hope not," I admitted quietly as we headed towards the stairs. "Because if it is, and the FBI are here, she's probably killed someone. Or lots of someones."

"But if it's not Malia..."

"It's not Malia," Isaac cut in, he and Lydia stopping us as we turned towards the top step.

"Then what the hell has the whole police department out here?" Allison asked, raising her eyebrows at the two of them.

"I don't suppose anyone's told either of you about the Shrapnel Bomber?" Stiles asked Allison and I, coming to a stop next to Lydia. I frowned, not enjoying where this was going.

"Jackson may have mentioned something a couple of years ago," I said, shrugging a shoulder and swallowing. "He detonated a shrapnel bomb on a school bus and killed a couple of teenagers, right?" Stiles nodded.

"He was being treated at the hospital, and he escaped," Stiles told the group. "Dad said the ambulance he stole to get away was found a couple blocks from here."

"So, you're saying there's a mass murderer with a vendetta against teenagers hanging around a _high school_?" Lydia clarified, her voice rising a little.

Stiles was quiet for a second, thinking over his answer. "Not teenagers, per se," he decided on, wincing. "Teenagers with glowing eyes."

And wasn't that just _brilliant_?

"He said that?" Isaac asked Stiles, his eyebrows hidden somewhere up in his hairline. Stiles nodded, pushing past the four of us to lead the way down to the first floor. We all followed quickly the stairs and hallways eerily quiet. "He said those exact words."

"Yeah," Stiles said, moving quickly. "And no one knows how he woke up from anesthesia. Just that when they opened him up, they found a tumor full of live flies, which in any other circumstance would be all kinds of awesome."

"All kinds of _disgusting_ ," I corrected, eyeing Allison's equally repulsed expression.

"Did you say flies?"

We all stopped and turned back to the sound of Lydia's voice, who stood a little further up the hall, her face a mix of surprise and confusion.

"Lydia?" Allison asked, taking a step closer as she watched her friend.

"All day I have been hearing this sound. It's like... buzzing."

Allison looked at me, her head tipped in a sort of _Goddamn it_ way. "Like the sound of flies?"

Lydia sighed, frustrated. "Exactly like the sound of flies."

Allison nodded, biting her thumbnail. "Amber said she felt something was wrong."

"Hey, that could just be regular teenage anxiety, for all we know," I defended, holding up a finger.

"Have you ever, in your life, felt anxious?" Stiles asked me, tipping his head.

"Yes," I scoffed, slightly offended.

"When?"

Of course, no example came to mind. I opened my mouth, then clamped it shut again. "That time... that time we were cornered by an alpha werewolf in the hospital."

"Okay, first, supernatural occurrences don't come under 'regular teenage anxiety," Stiles pointed out, raising his eyebrows. "And, second, just out of curiosity, which instance are we talking about here?"

"Is this really the conversation we should be having right now?" Lydia butt in, before I could inform him that it was in fact, the first time, when Peter Hale was our biggest problem and vampires didn't exist. "Are you forgetting about the mass murderer roaming our halls."

"Right," I said, clearing my throat. "We should probably do something about that."

"I'll try to find Scott, tell him about how your banshee senses are tingling, and all that," Stiles decided, tipping his head at Lydia before bolting.

"I'm gonna go find Josh and Jackson," I told them, nodding. "See if I can't get Josh to ditch and get out of here." Lydia nodded, smiling slightly and I turned and left, scanning the halls until I found a familiar head of floppy brown hair.

"Hey, bro," I greeted brightly, slapping a big grin on my face. He turned from his friends with his eyes narrowed, suspicious. "Can I borrow him for a second?" I asked the other young lacrosse boy, not waiting for an answer before I pulled him away. "Thanks."

"What's going on?" he asked me, before I'd had a chance to speak.

"You need to do something for me," I started, rolling my eyes at his groan.

"No," he stopped me, shaking his head. "No more favors."

"You'll like this one, I promise," I tried, smiling encouragingly. He sighed, but allowed me to elaborate anyway. "I need you to skip the rest of your classes and stay away from school for a little bit."

Josh frowned harder, eyeing me like he thought I had a fever, or something. "Is this a trick?"

I huffed. "Do you remember that story Jackson told us on Halloween a few years ago? The one about that guy who killed four teenagers with a shrapnel bomb?"

"Yeah," he answered softly, his frown easing a little. "Ain't a story I'm likely to forget."

"Well, he's here."

Josh was silent for a second. "Jackson?"

"The shrapnel bomber," I hissed, correcting him. "We think he's in the school somewhere, and while it's highly unlikely that he'll target you, given his preferences, it ain't exactly safe here."

"How?" Josh asked, swallowing hard as he looked around the hall, his face a little more panicked than it had been a second ago. "We heard the cops said they're locking down the school. No one in. No one out."

I huffed out a breath, looking around us. And then my phone dinged, signalling a text message and, as I checked it, our answer.

* * *

"Thanks, Ally," I said again as Josh climbed out of a window, the young huntress close behind him. She nodded, and smiled.

"Of course," she said, before blowing out a breath and following Josh. "But I can't promise I'll be back any time soon. The bestiary is _literally_ a thousand pages long; if we're going to find anything about flies coming out of people's bodies, it could take us all night."

"Josh is a fast reader," Lydia supplied, shrugging a little. "And remember; the word in archaic Latin for fly in _musca_."

Allison turned back to Josh, who nodded, a move that Allison copied. "Got it."

"So, where do we start?" Lydia asked Stiles after the two had left, who tipped his head.

"Upstairs," he answered, looking up to the clock. "We gotta go. Are you sure you don't need his blood?"

I nodded, hugging my grimoire closer to my chest. "There's another spell I can try with just the bracelet. It's a little harder, though, and it's my first time trying it out, so I don't know how well it's gonna work."

"Anything will help," Stiles said, widening his eyes as Lydia waited for him by the door. "Call me if anything comes up." I nodded again, and they both ran off, leaving me alone in the science lab with a map and a mass murderer's hospital bracelet. Not creepy at all.

Still, it was better than nothing. If Scott's mom hadn't been able to sneak it in, along with his hospital clothes, I'd be even less help. At least this way I could _try_.

I set the grimoire down on one of the benches and laid out the map beside it, spreading it out as flat as I could. And then I took a deep breath, the bracelet clasped tight in one hand, my other splayed across the map, and closed my eyes. " _Permisso laca tha tar_."

The result was instantaneous, and kind of painful. As soon as the last word had left my mouth, there was a searing pain down my stomach and a darkness in my mind that I couldn't quite shake off. The spell was working. That's when my eyes cleared enough to make out what was in front of me. The image was shifting, though. I saw the library, the stacks of books, moving as I crept forward to peer through the shelves at a girl, sitting alone on the floor. And then I saw the same girl, screaming as I came closer, somewhere much darker and much more terrifying.

The second I came back to myself, I grabbed my phone and called Stiles, trying to scoop up my grimoire and the map with my free hand whilst also tuning out the blaring of the fire alarm above me.

"Okay, change of plan," Stiles greeted me with, not giving me a chance to speak. "Get out of the building, like, now. We think Barrow might be in the boiler room. That way-"

"He's not," I cut in, shutting him up. "He's in the library. And so is Kira." I heard a muttered curse, then Stiles calling out to Scott and explaining the situation to him.

"Okay, Scott's gone to find her. We're out in the courtyard."

"I'll be right there," I answered, hanging up the call so I could grab the grimoire before it fell out of my hands, and then struggling to slide it into my bag as I hurried out of the lab and through the halls. I finally made it out without dropping anything, though also without successfully placing anything from the bundle in my arms to my bag, and dropped down onto the bench at the table that the group were sitting. As I did, Lydia tipped her head over the parking lot, where Kira stood with her dad. "She's okay," I said quietly, breathing a sigh of relief.

"She left the library with Coach, like, two seconds after you said that Barrow was in there," Isaac told me, his eyes narrowed. "Are you _sure_ you saw them in there together?"

"Yes, _Lahey_ , I'm sure," I snapped back, nodding my head once.

"You saw him creeping on her?"

"Well, it's not like I saw him and her from a third person's perspective, no," I answered, to which Isaac nodded, like I had just proved his point. "It doesn't work like that. But I saw it through his eyes."

"Did you see anything else?" Lydia asked me, her eyebrows low.

"Yeah, actually. I was kind of like what would happen later, I guess? They were somewhere else, and she was terrified."

"Wait, hold up," Isaac stopped me, holding up a hand. "You saw them both in two places at once?"

"No, it wasn't-"

"What is this, _Back to the Future_?"

"Listen, Lahey," I bit out, standing up and pointing a finger. "If I tell you I saw something, it happened. And I saw Barrow in that library."

Scott chose that _perfectly_ opportune moment to appear by my side, blowing out a breath has he shrugged.

"I couldn't catch a scent," he said, and my eyes drifted shut on a growl. "I don't think he was ever there."

" _Damn it_ , Scotty."

* * *

I leaned against the side of Stiles' bedroom door frame to watch the guy pin string to his bedroom wall, the red cotton stretching out between cut outs of newspaper articles, police sketches and photographs. It was a rare sight; Stiles concentrating, instead of snarking and generally making my life hell. It was a nice sight, too. Nice enough that I didn't notice the smile creeping onto my face until he turned around to grab more string, caught sight of me, and jumped about a foot in the air. It gave me just enough time to rearrange my face into something less smitten.

And wasn't _that_ an embarrassing thing to admit.

"Jesus, Am," Stiles gasped, drawing in a long breath as he steadied himself. "How long have you been stood there?"

"Long enough to appreciate the quiet," I smirked, watching his eye roll and slumping slightly in relief. If Stiles Stilinski had seen that smile before his heart gave out, it wouldn't have taken him this long to start teasing me about it. "You know, considering you're both the Sheriff's son _and_ fully aware of everything that goes on around town, you really should keep the front door locked when you're home alone."

"A lock isn't going to keep a rabid werewolf out," Stiles pointed out as I moved across the room to sit on his bed. "Or a Darach, or whatever. And you asked Derek to say Rebekah could come in a few weeks back, which stands to reason that the whole line about vampires needing to be invited in is true." I nodded.

"So what about the perfectly average serial killers?" I asked him, raising my eyebrows. "Oh, hey, did you hear about this one guy who killed a bunch of teenagers and is now currently on the run?"

"Yeah, okay, smartass," he muttered, narrowing his eyes at me, gesturing over to the window between us, where a bat was leaning against the wall. "That's what the baseball bat is for."

"Why do you have a telescope?" I asked him, suddenly overcome with curiosity at the new object. "This wasn't here the last time I was here." I gasped, turned to Stiles with a smile. "Is this a new peeping tool?"

"I don't peep on my neighbors!" he tried to argue, unconvincingly. I raised an eyebrow. "Anymore," he tacked on, before grumbling under his breath for a second. "Did you just come over here to torture me, or do you actually have a valid reason?"

I smiled, dropped my bag from my shoulder and let it slip to the floor. "I was wondering if you wanted to help me with something."

"I feel as though, despite how that sentence was phrased, I don't have a choice in the matter," Stiles murmured, watching me carefully.

"Have I ever told you how smart you are?"

"No, but if you start, I may be more willing to help you in the future," he told me as he dropped down into his desk chair. "So what is it?"

"Well, actually, I need your help carrying it in first," I said, tipping my head to the side and reaching down to grab the keys from my bag. "It's kinda heavy, and I didn't want to drag it all the way up the stairs if you were busy or whatever, and then have to drag it all the way down again." I sighed, shaking my head and getting to my feet, motioning for Stiles to follow. "It's in the trunk of my car."

"Okay, no judgement or anything," Stiles started quietly as we reached the stairs. "But please tell me it's not a dead body."

"It ain't a dead body," I told him, rolling my eyes at him, even if he couldn't see it. "Do you really think that _I_ would touch a dead body?"

"Well, no," Stiles admitted, a little unsure. "But I didn't really think you'd be up for touching dead animals either."

"You forced me into that," I argued, stopping at the front door to round on him. "I didn't willingly traipse through the mud to touch a dead deer."

"Sure," Stiles shrugged, leaning around me to open the door. "But the birds were all you."

I managed to snap my mouth shut after a second of glaring at his back as he made his way to my car on the side of the road, before hurrying after him. "I was taking one for the team!"

Stiles just smiled, nodding his head towards the trunk and waiting patiently as I clicked the button on my key, the lid of the trunk popping open slightly. Stiles slipped his hands under it and pulled it up, raising his eyebrows at the contents.

"Haven't seen this in a while," he murmured as I reached the car, eyeing up the brown and gold chest that was sitting patiently beside my grimoire.

"I haven't actually... reviewed it properly, yet," I admitted, shrugging a shoulder. "I mean, when Deaton gave it to me, it was in the midst of angry Argents and the kanima, and then I couldn't really take it to Nashville with me, because it's not something that Daddy would have missed. And since then... I don't know."

"Are you worried about what you'll find in there?" Stiles asked me, looking over. I shrugged a shoulder.

"Maybe," I said. "I don't know what kind of answers this thing will give me, if any. I'm not really sure I want them."

Stiles nodded for a second, before reaching down and grabbing the grimoire, giving it to me. "Well, I want them," he told me, picking up the chest with little to no problem and slamming the trunk shut. "You can just watch, if you want, but I'm cracking this baby open."

* * *

"Listen," Stiles spoke up after a few minutes of solid silence, clearing his throat when I looked up from the grimoire to him. From his tone, I had assumed he hadn't found anything of interest, but was trying to get my attention. And from the way he was still sifting through the contents of the chest like he couldn't sit still, I could assume that that attention had made him feel more than a little uncomfortable. "I know we haven't really spoken about it much, what with druids and alphas running around like they own the place, and, if I'm honest, if you didn't bring it up, I certainly wasn't going to. Until now, obviously, but I meant... You know, before."

"Stiles," I cut in, before he could continue rattling on about lord knows what. "I'm very confused right now."

He nodded, clearing his throat again. "I'm sorry," he surprised me with, his eyes wide and earnest when they met mine again. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you with the whole vampire thing, and I'm sorry that I didn't trust you asked me to, and I'm sorry for all the things I said."

I smiled. "It's fine, Stiles."

"It's not fine," he argues, laughing a little. "I said we weren't friends. I implied that you had gotten people killed. I took something you trusted me to help you with and used it as a punchline. Well, several punchlines, actually."

"Stiles, before all of _this_ ," I started, gesturing to the air around us in a move I knew he would understand, "I would have laughed at the idea of vampires too."

"Yeah, but that wasn't before all of _this_." Stiles leant his head against the wall beside his bed, staring. "It's not like it's the only crazy thing we've seen. When I suggested ancient human sacrifices in the midst of what could have easily been explained by werewolves, you trusted me. And then, not only did I not return the favour, but I made it into some big joke at your expense."

I wasn't really sure how to respond to that admission. It took me a while to respond at all.

"Do you remember that day that we spent _hours_ in Deaton's office while I tried to light that goddamn candle?" I asked Stiles, fiddling with the pages of the grimoire in my lap. Stiles smiled, nodded. "The one that just _refused_ to light?"

"It wasn't the candle that was the problem."

"Shut up, Stilinski. I'm reminiscing, here." I shook my head, ignoring his little chuckle. "We were in that 'barely friends' stage that we were so fond of, and yet, out of everyone that could have been there, everyone that probably would have been a nicer coach than you, there you were, harassing me from across the table."

"Hey, that harassment worked," Stiles argued, pointing a finger at me as I nodded in agreement. "It may have taken a while, and I may have severely hurt your feelings, but it got you to light that candle."

I hummed. "You're right. We weren't friends, we barely trusted each other with our locker combinations, and we couldn't hold a civil conversation for longer than approximately thirty seconds. But, ultimately, when I needed it the _most_ , I could count on you."

Stiles was quiet for a second. "Is that your roundabout way of saying you forgive me for being a jackass?" he asked finally, a small smile on his face.

"Well, it ain't like I could say it outright," I told him, rolling my eyes. "Do you know _any_ girls that say exactly what's on their mind?"

"True," Stiles murmured, tipping his head. I grinned, flicking through the grimoire until I found the page I wanted, and tilting it in Stiles' direction.

"This is Rebekah Mikaelson." He pulled the book closer, his eyes narrowing. "I mean, I know you've actually met her in person, but this is basically her life story."

"Does _Original Vampire_ mean what it implies?"

I nodded. "A thousand years ago, when she and her family were human-"

"There's a whole _family_ of these guys?"

"Stiles, I'm trying to tell a story here," I moaned, waiting until he nodded apologetically and allowed me to continue. "When she and her family were human, after they travelled here from Europe to escape the plague that took one of their siblings, they lost another sibling, their youngest brother, to a very different threat. One we have a lot of experience with."

"I'm thinking werewolves." I nodded.

"His death was as brutal as you can imagine, and so horrific, especially after already losing a child, that Rebekah's dad, Mikael, decided to do something about it. He couldn't lose anymore children."

"So, what?" Stiles asked, suddenly looking a little cautious. "Rebekah's own dad turned her and her siblings into vampires?"

"Not exactly," I said slowly. "He didn't have the ability to do that kind of thing. But Rebekah's mom, Esther, did. She was the Original Witch."

"Woah, hold up," Stiles stopped me, holding his hands up. "Original?"

"Not original like _the first_ ," I corrected myself. "Witches have been around for, like... ever. Much longer than vampires. However, Esther was the witch that created the _o_ _riginal_ vampires."

"She _created_ a whole new species?" Stiles asked me, his eyes wide. "How is that even possible?"

I sat up a little straighter, pleased with my captivated audience. It was a lot more fun than telling Daddy about this. "Well, a thousand years before the Mikaelsons, another witch, Qetsiyah, created an immortality spell, so that she could spend all of eternity with the man she loved. That went _horribly_ wrong and, here's a fun fact for you, resulted in the creation of the Other Side, where the spirits of dead supernatural creatures live for all eternity."

"And that's why witches can talk to each other," Stiles surmised as I nodded. "Because a witch created the whole thing."

"More than likely, yes," I agreed. "So, knowing Qetsiyah had accomplished this, Esther tweaked the spell a little, and used it on her own children to make them stronger and faster than werewolves, and gave them the ability to heal faster than humanly possible. Then, Mikael made them drink human blood before running his sword through all of their chests."

"Great parenting," Stiles said after a moment.

"If Mikael's entry in this book is anything to go by, then I would not blame Rebekah for having _serious_ issues with her parents," I said, shaking my head, and flicking through to Mikael's page. "I mean, when he found out that Klaus, one of Rebekah's brothers, wasn't actually his son, he tracked down and _murdered_ Klaus' real dad and the guy's entire family. So, yeah. I mean, with those kinds of genetics and influences whilst growing up, I can kind of understand Rebekah's personality."

"Why are you telling me all of this?" Stiles asked suddenly, narrowing his eyes at me. "Are trying to get my to sympathise with the thousand year old woman who made your life hell?"

I rolled my eyes, ignoring the little jump in my chest at the idea of Stiles' holding a grudge against someone because of me. Man, I was pathetic. "You're the one who always knows everything, in the least complimentary way possible."

"... Thanks."

"You know everything you need to know about lycanthropy, and human sacrifices, and you're helping me with this, so..." I turned slightly, towards Stiles. "Do you want to borrow the book?"

Stiles' eyebrows rose about four inches up his forehead. "Your grimoire?"

I nodded. "I mean, I know most of the basic stuff now anyway, and Josh has photocopied virtually every page, and if I need anything else, I'll know exactly where it is," I tried, shrugging a shoulder. "There's hundreds of entries in there about supernatural creatures, and talismans, and devices, and it would be really nice to not have to be the only one responsible for knowing and remembering all of it. This way, I can shift the blame."

"Gee, thanks, Am," Stiles said, shaking his head. I smiled, closing the book and lifting it up, holding it out for him to take. "Are you sure?" I nodded again.

"It's crazy awesome, you're gonna love it."

Stiles nodded, a small smile on his face as he warily took the book from my hands. After a few seconds of holding the book away from his body, like he thought it was going to explode or something, he laid it down onto his lap and smiled up at me.

"Did you happen to find anything of interest in the chest?"

Stiles hummed, shrugging a shoulder. "I don't really know what 'of interest' means in this case. Sure, there's plenty of weird and wonderful looking stuff in here, but I don't know what any of it is, or what it does. Although..." Stiles reached into the chest and pulled out an ornate, silver dagger. Which was odd. "Some of the things in here are pretty self-explanatory. Sure, it might not be used for self-defence or whatever. But it's still definitely some kind of knife. Possibly an athame."

"A what?"

Stiles stared at me for a second. Blinked. "You are so lucky you have me."

He pushed the book gently aside and peered into the chest again, pulling out a white, rounded stone that caught the light above us. I scoffed.

"There ain't no way my mom kept a crystal ball," I grinned, shaking my head. Stiles shrugged a shoulder.

"I think she did," he corrected, holding it out for me to take so he could continue his search. "Pretty sure there's a voodoo doll in here, too."

I took the crystal ball and peered into it, half expecting to see my future, or something, and found myself oddly disappointed when nothing appeared to me in the cloudy ball. So I sighed and let it down gently onto the bed. It would make a pretty paperweight, at least. Stiles plucked out a purple velvet bang that rattled as he shook it. He loosened the strings to open it and emptied the bag into his hands, revealing a few old looking pieces of jewellery. One particular necklace, a deep blue pendant on a silver chain, caught my eye.

"Pretty," I murmured, as I reached over to pick up the necklace. I held it up to the light by the chain, appreciating the pendants beauty, and I heard Stiles hum.

"This has your initials on it," he said quietly, holding the bag up in his free hand. He turned it so I could see the gold _ARW_ woven into the dark purple, and my eyebrows rose half way up my forehead as I turned back to the necklace in my hand.

"So you're for me, then?" I asked it, holding out my other hand to catch it in my palm, only to swiftly drop it to the floor when my surroundings flashed around me, accompanied with complete fear and a face that made my stomach twist.

"What the hell was that?" Stiles asked me, getting up and reaching down to grab the necklace from where it had landed, watching me with narrowed eyes as I jumped up and marched over to his paper-covered wall. I ignored his loud sound of protest when I ripped a drawing down, knocking his desk, and a few of the things on it, in my haste.

"Is this Barrow?" I asked him, holding up the police sketch for him to see. His eyes picked up a little, catching on to what had just happened, and he nodded as he stopped trying to tidy up after me. "Okay, I know I said this earlier, but I am, like, ninety percent sure he has someone, and he looked ready to kill whoever it was, but I couldn't see them, all I could see was him, and somewhere dark and cold, and I _know_ I said this earlier with Kira and I was wrong, but..." I shrugged, not really sure how to end my sentence, before Stiles nodded.

"Okay," he said, leaning past me to pick up his phone off his desk, three pens and a stapler in his other hand. "I'll call Scott. I think he's at Kira's, but- oh," he finished with, as his phone lit up in his hand, Lydia's name flashing on the screen. He answered the call and put it up to his ear, frowning. I marched back over to the bed to grab my own phone, calling Scott myself.

"What's- No, I- Lyds, just- Okay," he cut himself off, rolling his eyes for a second before taking the phone away from his ear and putting it on speaker.

"...and, I mean, if both Amber _and_ I thought something was up, that Barrow was there, then surely he _was_ there, right?"

"That's what-"

"So it got me thinking, if he was there - and I'm assuming that a witch and a banshee thinking the same thing can't be as completely wrong as we thought - and no one couldn't find a scent, then that means he had to find a way to cover it, right?"

I shook my head when Scott didn't pick up, redialling his number. "Right, so-"

"So then I thought, how can a person cover up their scent?"

Stiles eyes widened a little, his gaze dropping to his other hand. He shoved the phone at me and dropped everything else but a marker, only wincing slightly as the stapler landed on his foot, and pulled the cap off the pen.

"Scott said he smelt something chemical in the library," Stiles murmured, looking back up at me and the phone, taking it back and holding it between us. "He thought it was cleaning stuff, like bleach, but..."

"But anything with a smell that overpowering would cover any other scent," Lydia finished. Stiles blew out a breath, looking back up at me.

"You were right," Stiles said, raising his eyebrows for a second. "Barrow was at the school, and he was in the library with Kira."

"There's something else," Jackson cut in, his voice sounding further away than Lydia's as I dialled Scott's number for the third time. That boy better have a good excuse for not answering my obviously important calls. "We're at the school now, in our chemistry lab. The chemical cupboard was unlocked, there's blood on the floor in there, and there's something written on the board."

"Atomic numbers," Lydia supplied, thinking about it. "19, 53, 88."

"Potassium, Iodine, Radium," Stiles murmured slowly, shaking his head, looking about as confused as I was. "What does that even mean?"

"I don't know," Lydia said quietly. "It's not an equation... Potassium is _K_ -"

"Potassium is _K_?" Stiles cut in.

"Oh my god," I gasped, the realisation hitting my like three tons of breaks. "Iodine is _I_ , Radium is _Ra._ "

"Kira," Lydia breathed, barely covering Jackson's curse as Stiles looked up at me again, his face dropping. "Barrow was trying to kill Kira. And if he was after Kira then..."

"He's still after her now." Stiles breathed out heavily, shaking his head. "Barrow's going to kill Kira."

* * *

 **Thanks for reading, guys. Stay fetch.**


	4. If You Talk Enough Sense

**Happy Easter, everyone! I hope you all had as lovely a weekend as I did.**

 **Aww yasssssss, Hurricane! I'm glad you're loving the relationships with Malia and Stiles, I think they're my favourite to think out and write. And I definitely love how excited you get, it makes me want to write more and make you as happy as your reviews make me happy! Ashley, THANK YOU, so sweet, I love you. It's a good job you can wait that long, because I seem to keep you guys waiting a lot! And to the Guest, are you the same Guest as before? Also, I'm so glad you feel that way about their relationship, because the one thing I would hate more than anything is giving you guys something that didn't feel right, and felt just kind of shoved down your throats, so that makes me happy. So glad it was worth the (terribly long) wait!**

 **I don't think you guys truly understand how much I appreciate these reviews, they literally brighten my day so much. I see the notification in my emails, and it puts a smile on my face, and I make myself wait until I can read the reviews on here instead of in the email, because I really like to absorb it properly, and then respond on the document for the next chapter immediately, so I can put all my emotion and appreciation out there as much as possible. You guys are the greatest, and honestly the reason that I continue writing. So, thank you, for everything.**

 **P.S. I watched Psycho for the first time purely for the sake of this chapter. It was an evening well spent.**

 **I don't own Teen Wolf. Shock Horror.**

* * *

"Scott still ain't answering his phone," I informed Stiles, in case he hadn't already come to that conclusion with my multiple attempts at calling, and my loud cursing at Scott's general being when my attempts fail. "Are we there yet?"

"Nearly," Stiles said, the line of his mouth about as tight as his hands on the wheel.

"Scott's okay," I told him, trying to make my tone as even as possible.

Stiles shook his head. "Barrow is after Kira, Kira is with Scott, and Scott isn't answering his phone," Stiles recapped, blowing out a breath. "That doesn't equal an 'okay' scenario to me."

"I'd know if something was seriously wrong," I reminded him. "Even with control over it, I would know. Scott isn't dead, and he's not in any immediate, life-threatening danger. And that, after everything we've been through, equals okay to me."

Stiles laughed a little, just a quick breath through the nose, but relaxed a little, nodding. "You're right. He's fine. Maybe he's just getting some."

"Despite my usual reaction to the images of Scott 'getting some', that would actually be an ideal situation right about now," I murmured, shaking my head, dialling Scott's number _once again_.

Stiles was quiet for a beat. "How often do you think of Scott getting some?"

"More often than I would like," I admitted, listening to the oh-so familiar ringing coming from the phone for a few more seconds before hanging up again. "It's all Allison's fault. You'd think, given that they broke up _months_ ago, and that she and Lahey are all but dating, that she'd stop talking about their sex life already. You'd think that, and you'd be wrong." I looked up from the phone then, my mouth falling open a little. "I don't know why I told you that. Please don't tell Allison that I told you that." Allison would _kill_ me.

"Don't tell Allison that you told the best friend of her ex boyfriend that she still thinks about sex with him?" Stiles clarified, raising his eyebrows at me. "The ex boyfriend that _definitely_ still has feelings for her?"

"I said please," I begged, pouting a little.

"I'm not making any promises," Stiles said, smiling a little deviously as we rounded a corner. He slowed then, his smile dropping and his eyes widening in alarm at something ahead of us.

"Is that..."

"It's Scott," Stiles breathed as he jumped out of the car. I followed soon after, watching him crouch down to Scott's unconscious level, flat out on the floor, and try to shake him awake. Up ahead, I could see headlights approaching, stopping several feet up the road and cutting out, allowing Jackson's Porsche to come into view as Scott woke up with a gasp.

"Barrow," was the first thing he said, sitting up on his elbows at looking at each of us in panic. "He took Kira."

"We know," Stiles told him, glancing at me. "He was after her the whole time."

"Have you heard anything from Allison or Isaac?" Scott asked the group. Lydia shook her head no, and Scott growled under his breath, reaching into his pocket to take out his phone.

"You said you saw him with Kira somewhere else, right?" Jackson asked me, stepping closer. "Earlier on, when you saw him at the library, you said you saw them somewhere else, too."

"It was dark, that's all I saw," I told him, shaking my head. What I saw earlier was of no use to us now. "And unless either of y'all have a map in your car, I won't be able to find anything more specific than that."

Stiles looked at Jackson, who huffed. He scoffed. "We really need to be more prepared for stuff like this."

"They didn't find anything," Scott told us as he returned to the group, hanging up the phone. "Nothing useful, anyway."

"Wait, hang on," Stiles interrupted, turning to Lydia. "You knew he was at the school, too. How did you know?"

Lydia shrugged, self conscious as we all turned to her. "I don't know. I kept hearing flies."

Scott raised his eyebrows. "What do you hear now?"

Lydia over to me, before her gaze dropped to the floor in concentration, and then deflation. "Nothing." Scott sighed, his shoulders sagging. "I feel like I can do this," she said, her voice tight. "But I don't know what to do. It's like it's on the tip of my tongue, and I don't know how to trigger it. I just... I swear to God, it literally makes me want to scream."

Scream. My eyes widened, and I turned to Stiles with the same _Eureka_ moment that he seemed to be having. "You're a _banshee_ ," I reminded the girl and everyone else present, including myself.

"So, scream," Stiles told her. And scream she did.

I had to cover my ears with the volume and pitch of it, my brain feeling as though it was vibrating inside my head. Even the streetlights above us seemed to flicker. I'm surprised they didn't crack.

"Well, that's certainly gonna wake the neighbors," I muttered as I brought my hands back down to my sides, my ears still ringing.

Lydia didn't react for a second, her head barely moving, until she focused on something above her. "It's not flies," she told us, staring at the bright streetlight above us that had somehow managed to withstand the banshee scream. "It's electricity."

"Wait a second," Stiles muttered, raising a hand. "Barrow was an electrical engineer. He worked at a power substation."

"What substation?" Scott asked, already moving towards his bike.

"There's an old one by the railway depot," he told Scott, Jackson following him to the Jeep. The latter turned, however, when Lydia and I made a move to follow, too.

"Oh, no, not happening," he told us, waving us backwards. "There's no way you're coming with us."

"What?" Lydia asked, shaking her head. "Why the hell not?"

"This guy's a psycho," he said, as though we'd forgotten the little character flaw. "He kills teenagers."

"Teenagers with glowing eyes," I countered. "And heading in Barrow's direction, I can count two teenagers with glowing eyes. Over here? Zero."

Scott piped up from his seat on the bike as it roared to life. "We _really_ don't have time to be arguing about this." Jackson reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys, throwing them in our direction. By the time I had caught them and returned my gaze back to Jackson, he was already in the Jeep, Scott racing off, the Jeep close behind.

"The absolute bastards," I muttered, shaking my head as we watched them leave.

"So sexist," Lydia agreed, her arms folded over her chest. "They wouldn't even have a clue where they were going if it weren't for us, and then they make us stay behind and wave them off as they go to war."

I hummed in angry agreement, before a thought struck me. "Doesn't Jackson keep his wallet in his car?"

"Only because they won't fit in the pockets of the pants he likes so much," Lydia answered, turning to me with a sly smile. "I'm thinking we should stock up on snack supplies for your Halloween Spooktacular tomorrow."

I smiled brightly, taking a few steps back to Jackson's most prized possession. "Great minds really _do_ think alike."

* * *

"Hold up," I said, drawing to a stop in the middle of the school corridor and trying to let the strange information sink in. " _Kira_ caused the blackout?"

Stiles nodded, his face saying he was still equally confused. "She just... sucked up all the electricity. Like, 'oh hey, no big deal, I do this all the time'."

"I don't... How does that even happen?" I asked him, even knowing he couldn't give me an answer. "How does a person do that?"

"A _person_ doesn't," he argued. "I mean, I don't know what does, but no human being can absorb that kind of energy. I was up late looking through your grimoire, trying to find _anything_ that could help, but that thing is almost as big as the bestiary, and I was using a flashlight to see, so I didn't exactly get far."

"I can help," I suggested, shrugging a shoulder as we continued up the hall, towards Stiles' locker. "I can come over later, if you want. It ain't like Danny's party or movie night is on now, anyway."

"But it's tradition," Stiles said, pouting a little in sympathy.

"A tradition that requires modern luxuries such as power," I responded, shaking my head. "It's going to be the first year since fifth grade that I haven't celebrated 'Hitchcock Halloween'."

"Fifth grade?" Stiles repeated, his eyes widening. "Your parents let you watch Hitchcock at ten years old?"

"I mean, no," I shrugged, a little self conscious. "Obviously not. But I did it anyway. And by the time they found out, I was in eighth grade and already as scarred as I was ever going to be, so..." I shrugged again.

"That explains a lot, actually," Stiles murmured, nodding. It didn't sound like a compliment.

"Class starts in five minutes," Coach informed everyone, through the godforsaken megaphone of his. Don't ask me why he needed it; he knew damn well his voice was loud and punching enough, without the use of that thing. "Just because there's no power, don't expect there to be no school." I frowned.

"That was a triple negative," Stiles told him as he passed us, sending the man a wink. "Very impressive, Coach."

Coach nodded. "Copy that."

"He's a strange one," I murmured, shaking my head at Coach's back. A rattle behind me had me turning back, seeing Stiles roll his eyes at something on the floor at the foot of his open locker. I crouched, picking up the keys in my hand, and returned them to his hand. Instead of the gratitude I was expecting, though, Stiles just looked confused. "What is it? Ain't they your keys?"

"No, they're my keys." he murmured, narrowing his eyes at the offending objects and plucking out a particular key from the bunch. "Most of them, anyway. Not this one." I stole them back, turning slightly to examine it in better light, as Stiles waved down the hallway. A second later, I saw him launch forward a foot or two out of the corner of my eye, and looked up to see him holding Scott back, an arm around his chest. "No. No, stop. Stop."

"What?" Scott asked, looking between Stiles and something further down the hall. "I need to talk to her." Kira, I saw, who was trying to weave her way through the hall towards her locker as quickly and quietly as possible. I mean, I would want to look as unremarkable as possible, too, if I had just sucked up an entire city's worth of electricity.

"No, you need to remember that someone left a coded message telling Barrow to kill her," Stiles argued, watching Scott for a few more seconds before letting him go cautiously.

"Which is why I need to talk to her," Scott countered back.

"No way," Stiles said, shaking his head adamantly. "Until we figure out if she's just another psychotic monster that's going to start murdering everybody, I vote against any and all interaction."

"She don't exactly scream _psychotic monster_ to me," I murmured, watching the girl close her locker quietly, her head down. "She actually looks kinda sad."

"Maybe she's sad because she hasn't killed anyone in a while," Stiles suggested. I rolled my eyes.

"What if she's like me?" Scott asked Stiles, pleading. "Or like Amber. Or Lydia. Or Malia."

Stiles scoffed. "That girl walked through 1.21 jigawatts of electricity. She's not like any of you." We had to give him that one. Though, Scott still didn't look too happy about it. "So no interaction, got it? _Both_ of you."

I smiled sweetly. "I'm not making any promises."

"I..." Stiles shook his head as I handed back the keys and turned to make my way down the hall, Scott smirking and joining me. "No, no, you _know_ I hate it when people use my own words against me!"

"So, do you think you can distract Stiles during lunch so I can talk to Kira?" Scott asked me, an amused smile on his face.

"Please," I scoffed, shaking my head. "Don't doubt my talents."

* * *

"Stiles, come on," I begged, letting my head thump against the pages of the grimoire in exhaustion. "We've been at this for _hours_. The sun is almost down. There's nothing in here about power-absorbing monsters."

He continued pacing in front of his makeshift evidence board, tapping a pen against the palm of his free hand, deep in thought. So deep, in fact, that he didn't answer me.

"Maybe we're better off looking in the bestiary," I suggested, sitting up on his bed with a groan. "Sure, it's all in Latin, but all we need is one word to look for. What's the archaic Latin word for electricity?"

Stiles leveled me with an unimpressed stare for a second, before resuming his pacing.

"Is something else bothering you?" I asked, him, moving to swing my sock-clad legs over the side of his bed. He'd been quiet since we got here, barely doing any of the research he was supposed to be doing on his laptop, and you guys know Stiles; those things didn't fit with his usual character.

"How did that key get on my keyring?" he murmured, to my surprise. A murderer was running around our school yesterday and tried to kill the new girl at school, who Scott totally has the hots for, and who caused a blackout by stealing all of the city's power and keeping it in her body, and Stiles was worried about an unfamiliar key? "Where did it even come from?"

"Not our biggest problem right now, Stiles," I responded, standing up and wandering over to his desk and his overflowing board. "In fact, it's not actually a problem. Not even just by our standards. It's not a problem by anyone's standards."

"I just don't know how it got on my keyring, inside my locker," Stiles muttered, staring holes into the carpet.

"Maybe you're dad put it on there," I suggested, shrugging a shoulder. "You just didn't realize until then."

"I already asked him. He didn't know anything about it."

"Then maybe Jackson is messing with you," I teased, turning back to him to try to grab his attention. He huffed.

"That wouldn't exactly be out of character for him."

"Exactly. Ask him about it tomorrow. Now, could we possibly focus on the many other issues we currently have?" I said, raising my eyebrows. He nodded, sighing. "You know. The ones that are actually issues. Like how I can't continue a sacred tradition tonight because Scott's new girlfriend magically sucked up all our power."

"Speaking of that," Stiles said, suddenly perking up. "We have rearranged said tradition to take place here. Jackson is rallying the troops as we speak."

I raised my eyebrows. "And we're having it here because..."

"Oh, because we have a generator," Stiles clarified, nodding. "I should have led with that."

I smiled. "You didn't have to do that," I said, touched. "It's just a movie."

"It's not just a movie," Stiles argued, herding me out of the bedroom and downstairs. "It's a classic, and one that you've been watching every Halloween for, like, six years. I'm not going to be the guy to break that tradition when we have a perfectly good method of film-watching here." Stiles tipped his head, winced a little as he descended the stairs. "Okay, so _perfectly good_ is a bit of an exaggeration. The generator is kind of old, very old, actually, and it may not be in the best shape, so we don't want to overload it with anything other than the TV, and it _may_ cut out once or twice. Probably will cut out. Possibly more than once or twice."

"Stiles," I interrupted, a smile on my face. He nodded.

"Right, my point," he said, heading towards the living room, towards the TV. "We have a generator, so we're watching the movie in complete darkness, and laughing when Jackson inevitably falls off his seat in utter terror."

I smiled again, nodding. "Sounds perfect."

"Josh said you have a copy of the movie that you insist on using every year so he's bringing that," Stiles said, walking past me again towards the kitchen. "I also heard you bought provisions."

"Well," I sang, a little sheepish. " _Technically_ , Jackson bought provisions. Lydia and I just collected them from the store. Without his knowledge. Or permission."

Stiles nodded, shrugged. "I'm proud of you."

* * *

We were about two thirds of the way through the movie, and much further through our snack supplies, when Stiles' phone rang loudly, _just_ as 'Mrs Bates' jumps out on Arbogast and, _spoiler alert_ , stabs the shit out of him with the infamous soundtrack of the screeching violins behind her. It was typical, of course, and had each of us jumping about three feet above our seats. Stiles apologised, a little breathlessly, before getting up and leaving the room to answer it.

Stiles came back in a minute or two later, after my heart rate had returned to a much lower, much healthier pace, and stood beside the couch, looking sorry.

"Scott needs me to meet him at the station," he explained quietly, the voice of Marion Crane's boyfriend in the background.

"Is everything okay?" Jackson asked, leaning forward in his seat, ready to follow Stiles out. Stiles nodded.

"Yeah, yeah, everything's fine," Stiles told us, waving a hand. "Kira needs to get access to her phone. Something about risqué photos she doesn't want the entire department to see."

I snorted, shaking my head. I barely knew the girl, yet she was definitely the unluckiest person I'd ever met. And I live in Beacon Hills. Then a thought struck me. "Ain't her phone in evidence?" Stiles nodded. "Please tell me you ain't breaking into the evidence room."

"I'm not," he said, holding his hands up in surrender. "I am, however, giving Scott the props that _he_ will need in order to break into the evidence room." I shook my head at him. "Don't judge me."

"Too late," I heard Josh mutter from the armchair, his legs swung over the arm as he very obviously tried to focus on the movie over the conversation in the room. He didn't look impressed, though whether it was by our lack of respect for his movie-watching experience, or Scott and Stiles' shenanigans, I wasn't sure.

"I'll be back in, like, half an hour," Stiles said, ignoring Josh and backing away.

"But you're gonna miss the movie," I whined, pouting. Stiles just scoffed.

"I'm not even a little sorry."

* * *

A little while after Stiles left, my phone lit up beside me, having been silenced after the heart attack I had when Stiles' phone had started blaring at the worst moment possible, the same second that Lydia's and Jackson's did.

"It's Danny," I murmured, looking up to see them both nodding in agreement as they checked their own phones.

"Looks like the black-light party is back on," Lydia said, sounding pleased.

I groaned. "I hate it when cancelled plans get uncancelled. I was all set to chill out after yesterday."

Josh huffed, shaking his head across the room. "At least you were actually _told_ the party was uncancelled." I winced, and then his phone lit up. He shook his head. "Too little, too late, Daniel." I grinned.

"Well, I guess that means I have to go home and get ready," Lydia muttered, removing her legs from Jackson's lap and getting to her feet, stretching. Jackson grinned. "Sorry, Bates. You'll have to finish your story without me."

"Don't be sorry," Jackson said quickly, shaking his head. "Every year, I think it's not going to be as scary. Every year, I'm wrong. And every year, I try to find _any_ excuse to get away from Norman Bates and the nightmares that surely await." Jackson herded Lydia out of the room, eager to get away. "This is the first year that I've actually succeeded, so let's leave. Like, now."

"We'll see you at the party?" Lydia asked Josh and I, not budging from her spot by the doorway, even as Jackson continued to push and plead.

I nodded. "You will," I said, smiling a goodbye. "Eventually, anyway. I ain't moving from this couch until I've finished this movie."

And finish the movie we did. Josh had moved to sit beside me as the end of the movie neared, knowing that as soon as Lila Crane had run to hide in the cellar, as soon as I clutched a cushion to my chest, that I was the least ready for pretty much any scene in horror movie history. Screw that, any scene in movie history, period. It's the dead bodies. I can't handle dead bodies.

"Mrs Bates," Lila said breathlessly, as she reached out a hand to touch the woman's shoulder, turning her in her chair to reveal the wrinkly, rotted body of Norman's mother, just sitting there in the basement. Lila screams, the frightened jerk of her body sending the light above swinging, casting shadows all around the room as the screeching violins begin again and 'Mrs Bates' rushes into the room, knife at the ready.

"What the hell did I just walk in on?"

Despite what Stiles would later tell everyone, Josh and I most certainly _did not_ scream loud enough to rival Lydia, and we _definitely_ didn't cower into each other at the unexpected sound of Stiles' voice. We may have jumped a little, but that's it. No one should believe a word that comes out of that boy's mouth. It's all _lies_.

"Why do I have to go to some stupid party?" Stiles asked me about five minutes later, after the movie had finished and I'd taken a time out in the kitchen to calm myself down. I rolled my eyes, doing my best to ignore him as I collected the glasses and empty bags of popcorn and candy. "I have _actual_ things that I can be doing. Useful things. Like finding out what's up with this key. Or finding out what Kira is. Or finding out stuff about the contents of that chest Deaton gave you. Or literally anything else."

"Stiles, it'll be fun," I tried, returning from the kitchen and grabbing my boots from the hallway, sitting on the bottom stair to pull them on. "We're all going. You can't be the only one not going."

"I can try," I argued, raising his eyebrows at the suggestion. I smiled.

"You can," I agreed, nodding. "It won't go well for you, but you can try." Stiles huffed, his shoulders slumping, his head falling backwards until he was staring at the ceiling like a six year old.

"Fine," he grumbled. I'm surprised there wasn't any foot stomping. I know _I'm_ not mature enough to rule out a good stomp. "Fine, okay. But I'm only staying for, like, thirty seconds."

I nodded again, smiling as I got to my feet. "Sure you are," I told him, and the responding eye-roll told me he got the mocking in the statement. "Josh, you ready?"

"Yeah," I heard him mumble, appearing in the hallway a few seconds later. He narrowed his eyes at Stiles, almost warily, holding up a small, plastic case. "Have you played this yet?" he asked Stiles, jiggling the _Outlast_ game in his hand. Stiles nodded.

"Completed it," Stiles responded, looking equally unsure of the conversation and where it was headed.

Josh was quiet for a second, and I could see his jaw working, like he was biting the inside of his cheek. "Can I borrow it?"

Stiles' eyebrows shot up, before he nodded, a little jerkily. "Sure," he said, his eyes wide. "Yeah, of course."

Josh nodded along, awkwardly avoiding eye contact. "Thanks."

"What just happened?" I asked. I didn't know if the question was directed at either one of them, or just myself. I didn't get an answer either way. "Did y'all just have an actual conversation without a buffer and/or someone's life on the line? Did y'all just _bond_?"

"Oh, my lord," Josh breathed, closing his eyes and shaking his head. "Stop."

"Seriously," I continued, looking around to see Stiles just as bewildered as I was. "Was that a moment?"

"Stop," Josh tried again, whining a little. I opened my mouth again, but Stiles shook his head at me quickly.

"Stop, you're gonna scare him off," Stiles warned, his eyes wide.

Josh groaned. Loud. "I'll be in the car, far from you two losers."

"You see what you've done now?" Stiles accused, shaking his head at me as Josh stomped his way down the porch steps like the moody teenager he played so perfectly. "Any bonding moment we had is just... You ruined it. I think he may have actually started to maybe think about giving me a chance to convince him to like me."

I tilted my head, frowning. "What?"

* * *

"Oh, Derek is _so_ not going to like this," I murmured, my voice not even slightly audible over the loud thumping of the music even to my own ears.

"Mel's here already," Josh shouted, nodding towards the large group of dancing teenagers grouped in Derek's apartment. Derek's home. Derek, the werewolf. This could only end badly. "I'll see you later." I nodded back to him, letting him know I heard him, and wandered into the loft much slower than he. This didn't feel good. Not at all. I felt jittery, like I couldn't stand still, and I couldn't quite place why. Other, of course, than that knowledge that Derek, despite having been completely out of touch with us since left with Cora _months_ ago, could literally walk through those big doors at any second and kick all of our asses.

"Hey, it's about time," Jackson shouted when he saw me through the crowd. His face and bare chest were painted, glowing in the rave lighting. I raised an eyebrow. "Lydia was about ready to pick you up herself."

"And you're half naked because..."

Jackson tipped his head. "Lydia."

"Ah," I breathed, nodding understandably. "It's always Lydia."

"What's always Lydia?" asked the girl in question as she popped up next to us, her face and arms were decorated with the same bright paint that covered Jackson and a sweet smile on her face. One that dropped once she got a good look at me. "You didn't change."

"Excellent observation, Watson," I smiled, gesturing down to the clothes I had put on this morning.

"Why didn't you change?" I shrugged, letting her know that the thought of returning home from Stiles' and changing before attending a rave I was _so_ ready to not come to was too much for me without even saying a word. She shook her head. "Take your sweater off."

I raised an eyebrow as Jackson choked on his drink. "Excuse you?"

"I know you," Lydia said, like it explained her bizarre order. "I know you love bralets. Now, are you or are you not wearing a bralet, which, in certain circumstances - such as a black-light party - could be deemed acceptable outerwear, under that sweater?"

I opened my mouth to lie, before shutting it on a huff when Lydia raised an eyebrow that told me lying was futile. "I am."

She perked up, grinning. "Great. Then take your sweater off, and I will deem the outfit party-worthy." I rolled my eyes, but pulled my sweater over my head anyway. Lydia Martin is not a girl you want to challenge. "Much better," she said sweetly, grabbing my hand. "Now let's get you all painted up."

We saw Allison near the table where a girl was painting everybody's body parts, staring over at something across the room. Then she smiled, turned away a little shyly, and caught sight of us. "Hey," she greeted, smiling bigger. "Lydia's been anxiously awaiting your arrival."

"So I've heard," I murmured, shaking my head.

"Okay, Amber only just got here," Lydia pointed out, looking Allison up and down. "And she's still more party ready than you are. What's your excuse?"

Allison grinned, shrugging. "I'm waiting for a certain someone to come and paint me." I groaned.

"Lydia, get me out of here, quick," I ordered, catching Allison's playful eye roll. "I don't need to see Lahey drooling today."

* * *

Don't get me wrong, parties are great. I get to spend some quality time with friends, let loose a little, try to forget about all the worries that come with being a teenage witch in Beacon Hills. And, despite my original feelings towards attending this particular party after it had been un-cancelled, it seemed to be going okay. Lydia had me laughing as we danced among the massive crowd in the loft, Allison and Isaac were dancing much too close to be deemed totally innocent, and I had definitely seen Scott arrive with Kira in tow. I found myself actually _enjoying_ the party. Until I turned to find Jackson and the drinks he had disappeared to get and found something else entirely. Something I hadn't completely let myself realize I really didn't want to see until I was hit square in the face with it.

Stiles, sitting on the stairs, completely absorbed in some girl who had her tongue down his throat.

It took me a few seconds, during which I just stared like the self-hating masochist that I am, before I could turn away and try to erase that image from my brain before it became a long-term memory that I'd only rid myself of with the onset of dementia or an accident causing permanent amnesia. It didn't work. In fact, trying to not think about it only made me think about it more, and then I couldn't _stop_ thinking about it, even after Kira passed me minutes later and waved over in my direction. I tried to put some effort into the responding wave, tried to smile a little, tried to seem as put together as possible. Instead, I just felt sick. I decided then that some fresh air would be good for me, and very nearly ran for the door, forgoing my sweater all together, as that meant interrupting Stiles' make-out session to get it from upstairs. I didn't care if it was minus three hundred and thirty outside; I wasn't going anywhere near them.

The fresh air _was_ good for me. Definitely helped the sickness to subside. However, out here, it was quiet. There was no thumping music, no shouts and laughter, no familiar faces. Just me, and the silent night. Alone. That's when the lump in my throat started forming.

"Really?" Jackson asked from behind me, pulling his shirt over his shoulders and holding my sweater out for me to put on. He raised an eyebrow. "Stiles?" I laughed a little, sniffing and ignoring the wetness in my eyes. "When did that happen?"

I pulled my sweater back on and then shrugged, pulling the sleeves down over my hands. "It kinda crept up on me," I admitted, wrapping my arms around myself. "Not really sure when it started. The deer thing definitely solidified it, though."

Jackson frowned, throwing an arm around my shoulder and leading my over to the cars, where his was surely parked. "What deer thing?"

"When he... he buried the dead deer," I told him, leaning into his side where it was warm and comforting. "The one that ran into Lydia's car."

"Does anyone else know?" he asked me, tightening his arm briefly. "I know Lydia doesn't, because she would have told me, but Allison wouldn't."

I shook my head. "I've been trying to ignore it," I said, laughing at myself. "It hasn't gone so well. I think Josh may be suspicious, though." I think he had been for a while. Maybe longer than I had been. "He looks at me funny when Stiles is around."

"Doesn't Josh always look funny?" Jackson joked, grinning down at me as he tried to cheer me up. It worked a little. "Besides, it's not..." Jackson trailed off, his head perking up as something caught his attention. "Can you hear that?"

I rolled my eyes. "Jackson, you have _werewolf_ hearing. Of course I can't hear that."

"Someone's out here," he murmured, his arm slipping from my shoulders as he wandered around the corner. I shook my head.

"It's a party," I reminded him, following anyway. "There's plenty of people here."

"No, there's someone out here, and their heart is racing," Jackson clarified. "Like, _really_ racing." He sniffed at the air, moving further down the side of the building, following whatever scent he had, as I trailed along behind him, growing increasingly worried. "Why does that smell familiar?"

"Maybe it's someone you know?"

Jackson sniffed again. "Yeah, but it's... it's weird familiar. It's different. I can't place it."

I watched him for a second, following his nose down the alley, until his ears pricked at a noise that I caught too. A groan. Jackson jumped forward, over to a few cars parked alongside the warehouse, holding an arm out when I followed quickly, keeping me back. What we saw was not something I could have expected.

"Derek?" I asked, my eyes bugging a little at the whimpering wolf on the floor in the fetal position, shivering out in the cold. "What the hell?"

"Go and get Scott," Jackson told me, already crouching down to Derek's level, trying to get him to completely wake up from whatever state he was in. I nodded, even though Jackson couldn't see it, and turned and ran, back the way we'd come and towards the doors that would lead me back into the building. I didn't even get as far as the corner, though, before a growling behind me had me jerking to a stop and whipping around, alert and on guard. There was nothing behind me, and for a moment I thought it must have been Jackson, or Derek coming back to himself. That thought only lasted as long as it took me to turn back to my original destination, where I was met with a tall, dark shadow and a demonic face, bright orange eyes glowing from behind the mask.

I didn't even have time to scream.

* * *

The next thing that I remember that doesn't involve the ice and fear in my bones is being carried up the stairs, Jackson's quiet voice trying to convince the both of us that I'm fine and doing a poor job of it. And then the raging party in Derek's loft comes into complete focus again and lights blinding me as we pass through it, as I'm sat down somewhere and given a blanket after Jackson disappears for a second. I looked up past his concerned face, checking me over, when a crash sounded from across the room, saw Derek glaring at everyone with a look that he should get trademarked. Everyone, and I mean _everyone_ , turned to stare at the man that had just crashed their party, before he started yelling at everyone to get out. They were quick to follow his orders.

The entire party pushed passed us in their hurried attempts to escape as I tried to get to my feet, Jackson helping to steady me. I heard him ask of Lydia, saw him nod at a response that I couldn't hear, but I was too focused on the darkness to ask myself. The room had emptied of the party-goers, but other beings began to form, tall, and frightening. It was as though they were made of the shadows that they appeared from, wispy and dreamlike. Like they weren't even real.

The room was silent now, the few of us left here just staring as more and more of them came from the dark corners of the room, all turning in sync to stare unnervingly at one wolf in particular.

"Guys, they're all looking at me," one of the twins informed us, as though we weren't already aware. As though we weren't all watching as they took a threatening step forward, towards him. "Why are they all looking at me?" Another step, and his voice became panicked, a tone I wasn't used to hearing from the ex-alphas. Jackson stiffened beside me as they stepped closer again, but other than the quick glance to Scott on the other side of the room, he didn't move."Guys!"

In a blink, Scott rushed forward at the shadowy things, joined a second later by Jackson and Derek. As they fought, I ran over to Allison, where she stood away from the fray with Isaac and the other twin's weight between them, watching cautiously. Allison caught sight of me and grabbed my hand, pulling me closer.

"Are you okay? You disappeared."

I nodded. "Jackson and I just went out for some air, and we found Derek barely conscious on the floor. When I ran back in to get help, those things turned up." I shrugged a shoulder as Allison and Isaac looked at each other, gently setting the twin on the floor. "I don't really know what happened after- What are you doing?" I asked as Allison grabbed me and spun me around, my back to them. I frowned further when she moved my hair to the side, her fingers gentle around my left ear.

"It's the same," I heard Isaac murmur. When I turned back, my eyebrows high in question, he turned and moved his own ear, showing me an odd symbol. "We both have it, and so does Ethan."

"What is that?" I asked them, reaching up to feel the odd bump behind my ear, thoroughly creeped out. "What does that mean?" Allison shook her head and shrugged, a very un-comforting look upon her face.

At the loud clanging behind Allison and Issac, I turned, saw Scott groaning on the floor, pain on his face. I rushed forward, kneeling beside him to check him over. He shook his head, as though trying to clear it, and then jumped up, much more alert, when something over my shoulder caught his eye. Isaac, approaching one of the shadows with his claws extended, ready to fight. The shadow turned to him, before putting a fist to his chest, and pulling it away to unsheathe a long sword, straight from it's own body. Because that's a _totally_ normal thing for someone to do.

The shadow swung the sword in front of Isaac as the werewolf took a step or two back, the same snarling that I had heard just earlier echoing around the loft and vibrating through my head, as though warning him. Once the shadow was sure of Isaac's retreat, it turned, back to the twin, as the others surrounded him, cutting off any escape he might try.

"Somebody do something," Allison shouted, crouched in front of the unconscious twin protectively, watching from the sidelines. She looked up at Isaac, who simply watched as one of the shadows lifted a hand, placing it gently on the side of the twin's head, it's eyes glowing bright as it stared. After a short, quiet searing noise, the shadows let go, letting the twin drop to the floor, before turning back to Scott. We both jumped to our feet, backing away slowly as Scott grabbed my wrist and tried to pull me back, pull me behind him.

"It ain't me they want," I told him with a hiss, pulling my arm away.

"And I'm not sure it's me, either," he said quietly. I spared a quick glance over my shoulder, asking him want he meant, but he was already watching Kira, a few feet behind him. Of course. The idea that the strange new girl who could absorb power attracting these nightmarish shadow creatures wouldn't be so crazy. And it's not like we haven't had crazy before. I shook my head, taking a step froward and rolling my shoulders as Scott let out a low snarl of a warning, but before anyone could move, the room started to brighten, the rising sun shining in through the huge loft window. The shadows turned to it, and then, without a single sound, they disappeared, fading away like smoke in the wind, back into what was left of the dark room.

For a second, we all kind of watched, unsure of what had just happened, or what to do next. We all looked as confused and afraid as each other.

"What the hell were those things?" Scott asked, Kira finally stepping forward now that the danger seemed to be over. I shrugged, then swallowed, feeling the odd mark behind my ear again. Whatever they were, it couldn't mean anything good.

That's when Isaac turned to Allison, an almost steely look on his face. "Your dad's twenty-four hours are up."

* * *

 **Okay, so I know _Outlast_ was out, like, two and a half years ago(?) on PC, but I'm trying - _trying -_ to stick to the idea that this season takes place in late 2013, so it would have come out a month or two before the scenarios in this chapter happened. Cool.**

 **Also, just letting all of you know now, I'm not sure when the next chapter will be up. I'm half way through it now, so it's not an issue of getting it done within the next two weeks, but I'm going away next week, and I'll be busy the week after, so I won't have a lot of time to finish the chapter I'm working on now, edit it, upload it and start on the next chapter over the next two or three weeks. It will be no later than the 25th, but that's also the most likely deadline. So, apologies, but maybe think of it as a very early mid-season break in a fanfiction with a terribly unorganized writer at the best of times.**

 **Thanks for reading and for putting up with me, guys, and I'll see you all soon. Stay Fetch.**


	5. Then You'll Lose Your Mind

**Okay, so I know it's been longer than I originally promised... A lot later. I'm very sorry about that, my only excuse is that I'm lazy and had absolutely no motivation to write anything. So... Again, sorry about that, but here it is!**

 **Hello to nightflare12, and thank you so much for reviewing. I love that you've enjoyed the whole series so much. It's totally cool that you haven't commented until now, I'm just glad you liked my work. Also, like I've said before, I hate it when relationships in tv, movies and books feel forced or fake, so I'm glad you like how each of Amber's relationships are panning out. AshleyMarieD, I always love your reviews! You're very welcome, thank you for saying such beautiful things! Also, a massive thanks you to guests ox, Justyna and guest for your love reviews too! I've been feeling terrible and flu-y lately, and your reviews definitely brightened my day, so thank you!**

 **I don't own Teen Wolf. Shock Horror.**

* * *

"Honestly, Josh, I'm okay," I said down the phone, rubbing a hand over the new brand behind my ear. "I just wanted to make sure you got out alright."

"Are you sure you don't need me to come and get you?"

I smiled, but shook my head anyway as I grabbed my purse from one of the rooms upstairs and started making my way back towards the spiral staircase. "I'll be fine driving. I'll be home soon, okay?"

"Okay," Josh said quietly, definitely not satisfied with my answers, but he'd have to get over it. "Stay safe."

"You too," I said, before hanging up and stepping off the last stair. I checked my messages, but there was still no reply from Stiles. You'd think the boy would respond after the very obviously urgent text I sent him, but whatever. I huffed, throwing my phone back into my purse and making my way over to Allison as she sat by the counter next to the huge window that may have saved all of our lives. "You okay?" I asked her, her chin on the worktop as she stared at the phone in front of her like the unbroken eye contact would make it ring.

"My dad's still not answering," she murmured, barely lifting her head to look at me. "Either he's deliberately ignoring my calls because he knows what they mean, or something's wrong."

I tipped my head at her. "Ally, come on, this is us. There's always something wrong."

"Are you trying to make me feel better?" she asked me, raising her eyebrows. "Because it's not working." I smiled, throwing my purse onto the counter and pulling out some tissues, trying to wipe away the paint still along her jaw. "Thanks," she murmured.

"I'm sure he's fine," I tried. "Plus, you and Scott are heading over to your place once he gets back from taking Kira home, so you'll be able to ask him why he's ignoring you yourself."

Allison sighed, nodding. "Is Josh okay?"

"Josh is fine," I told her, sitting back and nodding at my handiwork. "He was on a lovely, romantic stroll with Melanie before it all went down. They're both fine. Lydia too, according to Jackson. She's doing better."

Allison nodded again, turning back to continue her stare-off with her phone. "Don't judge me. I know you're itching to do the same thing with your phone."

I scoffed. "My daddy's still sleeping soundly and completely unaware in his bed."

"Yeah, but you haven't seen or heard from Stiles since you saw him kissing that girl last night," Allison said slyly, finally turning away from her phone to grin at me as my head thumped against the wooden counter. "And you know he's not with Lydia, because Jackson said so, so where is he?"

"Am I really that obvious?" I groaned, pouting as I turned my head a little, watching her smugness spread all over her face.

"Not usually," she admitted, shrugging a shoulder. "But I've noticed a few little things, and when I saw your face last night, everything fell right into place."

"I'm so pathetic," I grumbled, shaking my head before pulling it upright again. "What is wrong with me?"

Allison smiled, sympathetic. "You're in lo-"

"No!" I cut her off, holding up a finger as she held back a giggle. "No, I'm not. It's a silly little crush that will, no doubt, fizzle away into nothing in _no time_. You got that?" Allison nodded, still trying not to grin, reaching over to grab the tissues by my purse, starting to wipe the paint off my grumpy face.

"Of course it will," she said, amusement in her eyes. "But if it doesn't, you know we can talk about it, right? The same way that I know I can come to you when I need to talk about Isaac, or Scott, or my mom. I'm here for you." I nodded after a second of avoiding eye contact, and she smiled. "Good. Now, since your face is clean and I can't leave until Scott gets here, I think you should give me your phone so I can play Candy Crush." She smiled so sweetly, I didn't even think of arguing, and instead rooted around in my purse for a second, feeling a familiar fabric as I searched. Handing the phone over to Allison, I reached back into my purse to pull the little purple bag out with it. I loosened the strings and help the bag upside down, shaking it slightly to let all of the contents fall onto the counter top. Allison, apparently, was no longer interested in Candy Crush. "What are they?"

"I don't really know," I admitted, frowning at them as I plucked up the purple one I knew too well by it's long chain.

"That one looks like tanzanite," Allison said quietly, staring at the pendant as it swung. "Where did you get it?"

"Do you remember that chest I told you about?" I asked her. "The one that my mom gave to Deaton to give to me, when 'the time was right'?" Allison nodded, frowning a little as she turned back to me. "This little bag was in there. I don't know what any of it's for, but when I touched this pendant the other night, the actual stone, that's when I saw Barrow at the power station. Like the stone kind of..."

"Amplified your power," Allison supplied, nodding. I shrugged. "Well, witches have, like, talismans, right? Maybe that's what it's for. And that..." Allison pointed to a large, silver filigree ring, a deep blue stone set in the center. As I held it, taking a better look, I could make out a wolf head ingrained in the ornate silver on either side of stone, another sitting below it. I smiled; it was definitely a Hayward ring. "That's just beautiful. That's just there to look pretty." I looked at it for a second longer, thoughtful, before handing it off to Allison.

"Why don't you look after it for me?" I suggested as I dropped the ring into her hands, watching her mouth drop a little before she started shaking her head.

"No, I couldn't," she argued, pulling it closer to her anyway, like she didn't want to let it go. "I can't. It's your mom's."

"Actually," I started, picking up the bag and showing her the gold stitching that spelled out my initials. "It's mine. And I don't really wear big rings like that."

"Why wouldn't you wear this?" she questioned, as though saying such a thing was blasphemy. "It's so pretty."

"Then you wear it," I pushed, placing all the other pieces back into the velvet bag and hiding that in my purse before she could give it back. "It'll just sit in the bag and gather dust if you don't."

"Well, I wouldn't be able to sleep if I knew that was happening," she said, feeling the ring in her fingers before before slipping it onto the middle finger of her left hand and examining it there. "Are you sure?" she asked a sheepishly, that little crease appearing in between her eyebrows. I nodded, and she smiled, small and pleased. "I'll take really good care of it."

"I know," I nodded, smiling as she returned to checking out her newly-adorned hand. I have to admit, it definitely suited her. Almost like it was made for her.

* * *

"I'm a true alpha," Scott said, smiling a little as the twins looked at each other curiously behind him. "You have no idea what I can do."

After what seemed to be a full silent conversation, one of the twins groaned. "Fine," the other one said. "We'll give you a little privacy. But don't go far." The two of them turned and stormed off, looking over their shoulders a few times before turning the corner and moving out of sight.

"Why, exactly, are the twins following you around?" I asked Scott, who sighed heavily.

"I think it's about trying to be part of the pack," he said, closing his locker and shrugging a shoulder. "I think they want to protect me to show me they're not so evil anymore."

I pursed my lips. "They made Derek kill Boyd," I reminded him. "Kill his own beta. I don't think that kind of evil disappears overnight."

"I didn't say I believed them," Scott said defensively, turning to lead the way to find Stiles. "However..."

"Oh, no."

"However, they do seem pretty sincere," Scott tried, his face showing all of the conflict that was going on inside his head. "Aiden looked after Lydia last night."

"Yeah, because he has the world's creepiest crush on her," I told him, shaking my head. "A crush that only formed because he spent so much time stalking her while the alpha pack tried to figure out all the best ways to get to you. The other one did the same thing with Danny, only that attempt was more successful because Jackson wasn't in the way."

"Okay, yeah, so you have a point," Scott agreed, wincing a little. "But, _now_..."

"Now, they have to live with all the horrible things they've done, and should never be forgiven," I said, widening my eyes at him as we stopped in the middle of the hallway.

"Everyone else gets forgiven," Scott tried. "Allison was forgiven for everything she did last semester. Derek was forgiven for trying to kill Lydia, and then Jackson, and not caring who got in the way. So was Isaac."

"Okay, to be fair to them, Derek and his pack were trying to save many lives," I admitted, shrugging a shoulder. "They were doing what they thought was the best thing, and I say that while still not really liking either of them too much. And Allison was mentally and emotionally manipulated by her grandfather when she was weak and vulnerable. Her mom _died_. She cannot be held accountable for any poor judgements she made back then."

"And how do we know that the same thing didn't happen to the twins?" Scott challenged me, raising his eyebrows. I huffed. Why did he have to be right all the time? "We don't know the circumstances that led to them being how they are, and we can't judge them based on only what we've seen." I groaned. "Maybe we should give them a second chance."

"Whatever," I grumbled, folding my arms over my chest. "Danny says Ethan isn't so bad, I guess. Swears it, actually. But Aiden still gives me the creeps. I don't like him."

"Don't like who?" Stiles asked, stopping behind Scott as the latter moved to the side to greet him, twitching almost nervously. "Isaac?"

"No," I muttered, before shaking my head. "Well, yeah, but that's not who I'm talking about in this instance. Aiden. I don't like Aiden."

"I don't like either of them," Stiles agreed quickly, much to Scott's displeasure.

"Well, you're going to have to try," I told him, smiling up at Scott. "Because our alpha here is thinking about letting them into the pack."

"That's not-"

"Oh, dude, no way," Stiles cut in, shaking his head fast and hard. "Not them. That's a terrible idea." Scott glared at me as Stiles rambled about how letting the twins into our pack would result in the untimely demise of all of us. I just smiled back. "But, um, on a different note," Stiles said, growing quite and almost worried. "Can I talk to you?" Stiles asked, eyes on Scott. Scott frowned, nodded, and Stiles' eyes slid over to me before flicking back to Scott.

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, okay, I know when I ain't wanted." I took a few steps back, pointing a finger at Scott. "Don't leave out any of the details about the creepy shadow monsters from last night, 'kay?"

"Wait, what?" Stiles asked, eyes widening as they flicked between the both of us. I nodded, satisfied with his surprise.

"Yeah, if you answered your phone, you'd know about it already," I chastised, turning and leaving the pair to talk it all through. "I'll see you in English."

* * *

Home room flew by, as it so often does, and before I knew it I was headed to English, itching to continue chewing Scott out for even _thinking_ of forgiving the twins and allowing them to become part of the family. It was a terrible idea, and Stiles was right; it would get us all killed, and probably in an incredibly brutal and bloody manner. Not really the way I want to go.

It was as Jackson and I were making our way to English, the both of us complaining about the thirty minutes of sleep we each got this morning after returning home from Derek's, that I saw Stiles, headed in the wrong direction. Jackson didn't need an explanation as I looked back at him, instead telling me he'd make sure no one stole my seat, and heading into the classroom while I caught up to Stiles.

"Hey, Stiles," I called, slowing down as I neared him. He turned, his eyes wide and kind of distracted, smiled in greeting. "Are you alright?"

He nodded, cleared his throat. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"You sure?" The boy nodded again, and I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. "Because English is that way."

It took him a second, but he did eventually register my words. The playful, easy smile I was going for was hard work to keep up when I saw him like that.

"Yeah, I uh..." Stiles cleared his throat again, shook his head as though to clear it. "I don't think I'm going to English."

"So, where are you going?"

Stiles shrugged. "Home, maybe."

"You ain't sure?"

Stiles laughed. It wasn't a pleasant laugh. "I'm not sure of anything at the moment."

I took a few steps closer, close enough that our feet almost touched. "What's wrong?"

I thought for a moment that he was going to wave it off, tell me it was nothing, make a bad joke. I think I might have actually preferred that, if the only other alternative was how he looked at me then. Lost. Hopeless. Like he wasn't entirely sure how to answer my question.

"I think I might be going crazy," was the honest answer he followed with. He laughed a little as he said it, like he couldn't believe the words were even coming out of his mouth, like he couldn't believe them to be true.

I smiled, or tried to, at least. "Hey, been there, done that," I joked, waning a little when Stiles didn't really respond at all. "Got the lousy t-shirt. You wanna talk about it?"

Stiles shook his head, his eyebrows drawing closer. And then he changed his mind. "You saw that key, right? The one that mysteriously appeared with the rest of my keys."

"You mean the one you haven't shut up about for the last couple of days?" Stiles nodded, and I joined him. "Yeah, I saw it."

"Like, actually saw it?" Stiles clarified. "Not just, heard me talk about it, or saw the rest of my keys. You saw that actual key?"

I nodded again, watching him grow more and more rattled as I did. "I saw it, Stiles. I held it in my hand."

"It disappeared," he said, quiet now, almost as though he was talking to himself. "It just... it's gone, like it wasn't even there. But it _was_ there."

"Stiles."

"Where did it go?" he asked me, shaking his head like it would shake the answer loose. "It's not like it just disintegrated or something."

"Maybe someone took it," I suggested, barely holding my voice at an even level. Stiles was starting to worry me. Like, _really_ worry me. "The same person who put it on there in the first place."

Stiles nodded. That would make sense. "Maybe it's the same person who wiped the writing off."

"What?" I asked, confused. "What writing?"

Stiles laughed again, that same, crazed laugh. "The numbers on the board that Lydia and Jackson found, the ones that told Barrow to go after Kira?" I nodded. "I came here last night, because of something Caitlin said about phosphors, and I saw them, written on the chemistry board. In _my_ handwriting."

I struggled for a second, struggled to come to the same conclusion he had. "Stiles, why would you write Kira's name on the board? Why would you want Barrow to go after her? How would you even know how to communicate with him?"

"I don't know the answer to any of those questions," he admitted, nodding. The he shrugged. "But I also don't know how the key got in my locker, or where it went, or why the writing on that board was mine." He was quiet for a second, ran a hand through his hair a few times. "The key... it was the key to the chemical storage closet. The closet that Barrow was hiding in to cover his scent."

"So what?" I asked him, laughing a little at the absurdity of the conversation we were having. Stiles actually believed that he'd aided the psychopathic, werewolf-hating mass murderer escape police custody and hide in our school in an attempt to kill the new girl. I mean... Come _on_! "You think you gave Barrow the key so the werewolves couldn't catch his scent?"

"If I was helping someone hide from werewolves, I would know to do that," he tried, desperate. Any answers, even these terrible ones, were probably a better option to him right now than no answers at all. "I would have thought of that. And then I just so happen to find the key to the very closet he was hiding in in my locker? You think that's a coincidence?"

"Yes!" I nearly screamed, so frustrated from these ridiculous theories he was coming to. Even so, after my own experiences in my insane mind... I could understand where he was coming from. "Stiles, you would not help a mass-murder kill someone. That's not you, that's not who you are."

"What about the present Scott and I left for Coach on Mischief Night?" he continued, almost ignoring me all together. "It was wrapped up in a gift box, a little bow on top, and inside was just a load of nuts and bolts. Just like the shrapnel bomb that Barrow used to kill those teenagers. And it was my idea."

"Stiles, this is stupid," I tried, and I could feel my own frustration and desperation rising, trying to get him to see clearly just how insane this thinking was.

"Three's a pattern, Am."

"It's a stupid pattern," I argued, shaking my head. "But fine, fine, yeah, it's a pattern. And it all seems really weird, linking you and Barrow together, I'll admit it. But do you have any reason to want Kira dead? Do you have any reason to help a mass murderer?"

"No, of course not," he admitted, opening his mouth to continue his rantings before I stopped him.

"Then you have opportunity and means, but no motive," I pointed out. He quietened then. "There's no sense in a crime with no motive."

Stiles shrugged after a long beat of silence. "That doesn't mean they don't happen."

I closed my eyes on a sigh, not sure of what else I could do to help. Not sure if there was anything that I _could_ do. "Maybe going home is a good idea." Stiles nodded, agreeing. At least we agreed on something in this conversation. "It's been a long couple of days." Stiles scoffed, as if _that_ wasn't the understatement of our lives. "Go home, get some sleep, and call me when you wake up. If you still feel as strongly about this... theory, as you do now, then we'll go over it."

"You don't-"

"I kinda do, actually," I interrupted, wincing a little. "As much of a pain in the ass as you are, you're still there for me when I'm being kind of crazy. It's only fair that I return the favour." Stiles smiled, the first expression that I was really happy to see on his face during that particular conversation. Then he nodded, looked at me one last time, and turned and left.

There was no parting quip as the doors swung heavily behind him, no sarcastic remark, not even a little self-deprecation. It wasn't Stiles, and I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all.

* * *

"I was surprised when you called," Deaton told me as he led me into the back room, Poe's crate in his hand. "Is everything okay with Poe?"

"Aside from being a pain in my ass, she's great," I told him, smiling at his small laugh as he set the crate down on the table and opened the door, allowing the cat to come out and greet him as she deliberately ignored me. I rolled my eyes. _Drama queen_. "The appointment actually has less to do with Poe, and more with me. Or, more with that chest you gave me."

Deaton lifted his eyes from where they were focused on Poe, nudging his hands with her head as she purred. "I see," Deaton said, nodding. "You have questions?"

"A few," I admitted. "I still haven't been through all of the stuff in there, but Stiles is helping me figure a lot of it out. The other night, though, when we were checking out the stuff in there, we found this little bag." I reached into my purse to pull out the bag in question, but from Deaton's understanding face, I had a feeling I hadn't needed to show him for him to know what I was talking about. I laid it out on the table, opening the bag and spilling out the jewelry inside. Deaton nodded. "I was hoping you might know what these are for."

"I know a few of them," he told me, lifting up the almost purple pendant that had freaked me out so much the other night. "For instance, this stone is tanzanite." Allison was right. She'll be pleased to hear that. Deaton picked up a ring, one with a rose gold band and a silver stone so opaque it would look like a rock, if not for the way it shimmered in the light. "And this one is quartz. Different stones have different magical properties, you see. The ring would help your magic as a whole, help to strengthen it, whereas the necklace would be used when you want to communicate with spirits, or for clairvoyance, a department in which you don't need much help."

"But it helped me the other night," I told him, gesturing to the necklace. "I touched it, and I saw Barrow, something that I wasn't trying to do. There was no intention of it, but when I touched the stone, I saw him."

Deaton nodded, thoughtful. "Other witches would probably use it to focus their magic when trying to see, but you have that talent without the aid of extra magic. In cases like that, a stone would probably further increase the strength of the ability you already have, taking it up to a whole new level."

"So, if I want to see something that I can't on my own, or to see something clearer, I can use this?" Deaton nodded again, a movement I copied. "Okay, so what about the other pieces? There was another ring, too, but Allison really liked it, so I gave it to her." Deaton raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"If it were anyone else, I'd tell you that handing out magical jewelry isn't a smart thing to do," Deaton said, a look much like one I'd seen on my daddy's face many a time on his own. "However, I've noticed that you take after your mother a lot in many ways, and if that woman was anything, she was a smart witch. She always seemed to know what to do."

I nodded, smiling a little. "She told me to always trust my instinct," I told him, thinking about the letter than lay in my desk draw, soft after being read so many times. "Something in me told me to give the ring to Allison. Like she was supposed to have it."

"Then pay no attention to anything I say," Deaton said, smiling, before returning to the jewelry that Poe had decided were her new toys. "These rings. The black stone is Black Kyanite, and it's used in what we call moonlight rings. There are some werewolves out there, different to Scott and the others, who can never learn to control the shift on a full moon. That's what these rings are for. It stops the shift from taking place for werewolves of that breed."

"There's different _breeds_?" I asked him, my eyes wide. "Jeez."

Deaton tipped his head and sighed, like he knew exactly how I was feeling. "The blue ring is Lapis Lazuli. You may have seen one similar before on your friend Rebekah. It protects vampires from the affects of the sun."

"So, vampires _are_ vulnerable to sunlight, just not with this ring." Deaton nodded.

"There are many other rings like these, that do the same jobs," Deaton supplied, holding up another necklace and frowning at it. "These ones just belong to your family, or who you choose to give them to. This necklace, however... I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it."

I looked closer, at the familiar silver around the dark blue stone. At the wolf heads entwined in it. "That looks just like the ring," I told him. "The ring that I gave to Allison."

"Then they may do the same job, whatever it is," Deaton guessed, shaking his head curiously as he laid the necklace back down. "With the wolf heads, I would say this is definitely jewelry made by a Hayward witch, but when and for what purpose, I can't be sure. Maybe there's something about it in your grimoire." I nodded, staring at the pendant.

"I'll have a look through it," I said, smiling up at the vet. "Thank you, Deaton."

"Any time, Amber," he responded, smiling back in that vaguely creepy way that he is wont to do. "It's what I'm here for. Well, that and taking care of precious little things like Poe, of course."

And, of course, Poe just _loved_ that.

* * *

"Wait, wait, hold up," I stopped Allison, holding up a hand. "You're telling me there's nothing we can do to stop these things?"

Allison's face told me she had had a similar reaction to this news when she had heard it the first time around.

After the visit that she, her dad and Isaac had paid to someone her dad once knew, someone who could help them figure out the shadow monsters and how to kill them, Allison had come over to mine to interrupt Josh and I in our search through the photocopied pages of my grimoire to find anything remotely related to that jewellery, in order to fill us in. Which, if I'm honest, I'm starting to wish she hadn't.

"The Oni are essentially unstoppable, yeah," Allison agreed nodding from where she sat across from me on the floor, the three of us forming a sort of triangle, pages spilled out between us. "Katashi says they're like a tsunami; you can't fight it, you just have to endure it. Which would normally suck, but he doesn't think they're trying to hurt anyone."

Josh snorted, not believing a word of it. "The things that are basically made from shadows, who attack people, mark them, and carry massive swords ain't trying to hurt anyone?"

Allison nodded. "I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but, so far, they haven't actually hurt anyone." Allison scooted over to me, turning my head to show the mark to Josh. "All they have actually done is mark people. Yeah, sure, it was under surprising and terrifying circumstances, but this was their intention. Katashi says it means 'self'."

"Self?" I repeated as she moved back, raising my eyebrows. "As in, I'm myself?" Allison nodded again. "Who else was I going to be?"

Allison was quiet for a second, shuffling to get comfortable. "A Nogitsune," she told us, the foreign word not meaning a thing to either Josh or I. "Also known as Void. It's a type of Kitsune, a Japanese trickster spirit, except the dark Kitsune draws power from pain and chaos. That's what the Oni are looking for. They're looking for the Nogitsune, for someone possessed, and after they've checked it's not you, they mark you, to say you're still yourself."

"And what if I'm not myself?" I asked, a little afraid of the answer I was to receive. "What happens then? What happens when they find whoever isn't their self?"

Allison shrugged, a small, almost hopeless shrug. "Then we let them destroy it. No matter who it is."

* * *

It wasn't until late the next night that things started slipping in to place.

I was sleeping soundly in my bed, arguing with my neighbour, Bob the chicken, over who got to keep his wife's egg - she gave to me for my birthday, just FYI, so it was totally mine - when his usual pitchy voice started to vibrate. Then his whole body started to vibrate, too. It wasn't until something clicked inside my barely conscious mind that I realised it was my phone, and that's when I jolted awake.

It took me a second to remember what had woken me in the first place, but when my phone started to vibrate on my right stand again, I remembered. Damn chicken.

I rolled over enough to grab my phone, saw Scott's face lighting up my room, and leant back with a huff, answering it.

"This better be good, McCall."

"Stiles is missing," was all he said in response. I had to give it to him; that boy knew how to get a girl out of bed.

"What do you mean, he's missing?" I asked him, throwing the covers back and getting to my feet, Poe grumbling in complaint.

"Okay, missing might be the wrong word, but I don't know where he is," Scott clarified, not helping my heart rate in any way. "He called me, said he didn't know where he was, or how he got there, and his phone kept cutting out... Isaac, get up! He said he's stuck, and he can't get out, and I think he's bleeding."

"Okay, um..." I rattled my brain, trying to think of any coherent thought at that moment. Nothing came to me. "Did you... Have you called his dad?"

"No, he asked me not to," Scott told me, a voice from Scott's end of the phone interrupting us. "Isaac, get dressed. It's Stiles."

"He asked you not to?" I repeated, confused. "So what? We could have half the police force out looking for him."

"He doesn't want to worry him," Scott answered, his voice dimming in and out as he, I assume, tried to get dressed with one hand. "I'm gonna go to Stiles' place, see if there's anything there to help us find him."

"I'll meet you there," I told him, not needing to be asked, hanging up the phone a second later. I switched my pyjama shorts for the jean ones I had been wearing earlier and pulled the first sweater I could find over my head, quickly followed by whatever boots I pulled out of my closet. The next task was waking Josh up, which, under any other circumstances, is a long and drawn out process, usually involving false promises of pancakes and homemade cookies, but I did not have the time or mental state for any of that. Instead, I burst into his room, his door hitting the wall with a bang, and marched over to his bed and shook his awake.

"I'm so gonna kick your ass when I manage to open my eyes," he threatened, trying to roll back over.

"Josh, Stiles is missing," I told him, words that were, apparently, enough to wake him up fully, sitting up in his bed, surprisingly alert. "I'm meeting Scott at his place, I don't know how long I'll be out."

"Give me two minutes," he said, jumping out of bed. "I'll come with you."

"Wha- No, you don't-"

"Too late," he said, shoving me towards the door just as another opened across the hallway.

"What the hell is going on?" Daddy asked us, shielding his eyes as Josh turned on his bedside lamp. "It's the middle of the night. Is this a pack thing?"

"Stiles is missing," I said again, hearing the words for what felt like the millionth time in the last five minutes. Didn't make it any more real, though. "He called Scott, said he didn't know where he was, or how he got there. I'm meeting Scott at Stiles' to try and figure out what's going on."

Daddy didn't seem to know what to say to that, so instead I raced past him to grab my keys from my room, meeting Josh in the hallway seconds later. "Do you need me to do anything?" Daddy asked me, his eyes wide. I shook my head.

"If we need anything, I'll call you," I told him, moving towards the stairs before another thought hit me. "Don't call the Sheriff."

"Don't call the father of the missing kid?" Dad clarified, shaking his head at me. "I can't not call him. He needs to know."

I huffed, flapping my arms a little. "Do you really want to worry him like that?"

"What if you don't find him?" he questioned me, his eyes hard. He was definitely going to call the Sheriff.

"We'll find him," I said, almost sure of myself.

"Amber," Dad said, before i could try to follow Josh down the stairs. I sighed, closed my eyes and turned. "If he's outside... It's cold out. He won't last long."

"We'll find him, Daddy," I said again, breathing slowly to push back the fear I felt at how true that comment was. "He just has to hang on a little longer."

* * *

Josh and I got to the Stilinski residence before Scott, but another familiar vehicle sat waiting at the curb as we pulled in.

We jumped out of the car as Jackson and Lydia got out of the Porsche, her face matching one I'm sure I'd been wearing since Scott called.

"What the hell is going on?" Lydia asked, stepping right up to me.

"Did Scott call you?" I asked her, putting my hands over her arms, rubbing softly. She shook her head, looking over her shoulder at Jackson, who shrugged.

"He tried calling me, but I'd left my phone in the car, and Lydia had already heard it before I got the messages." He shrugged his shoulder, almost apologetically, and I nodded. Then something hit me.

"Wait, what?" I said, turning back to Lydia. "What did you hear?"

"Voices," she told me, shivering a little. I don't think it was from the cold, especially considering Lydia's a banshee. She doesn't hear things like Scott hears things. She hears things when people are going to die. "We had music playing, and then it cut out, and I could hear voices. I could hear Stiles. He was asking me to find him." She shrugged, laughed a little. "How the hell am I supposed to find him?"

"I don't know, Lyds," I admitted, rubbing her arms again before leading the way up to the porch. "We should go check out the house, c'mon."

"Scott's on his way," Jackson said, gesturing his head up to the house. "He's got a key."

"So do we," I answered, jumping up the steps and feeling my way along the top of one of the front windows until I felt the telltale chill of metal. I brought the key down to eye-level, smiling despite the circumstances.

"That is one of the worst hiding places I've ever seen," Josh said, shaking his head slowly in judgement. I nodded, stepping back up to the door and unlocking it, swinging it open.

"For a sheriff and one of the smartest people I know, they're not great when it comes to home security."

We didn't say anything else as we quickly checked over the rooms on the first floor. There was no sign of any trouble at all, no mess, nothing broken, so we quickly moved upstairs, towards Stiles' room. If he had recorded anything about where he might be, it'd be on that wall of his, covered in string.

His room, however, was a more disturbing sight that I had anticipated.

The string I had expected was there, alright, but it wasn't just on his wall. Instead, several pieces of string tied his wall, his room, to the scissors that had been impaled into his mattress.

"What the hell..." I heard Josh murmur quietly, barely audible over the sound of feet on the stairs. Scott burst into the room seconds later, followed closely by Isaac, but they both stopped dead when they saw the state of Stiles' room.

"He uses red for unsolved cases," Lydia told us all, seemingly unable to tear her eyes away from the sight.

"So what?" Jackson said, looking around the room. "He thinks he's part of an unsolved case?"

"Or is an unsolved case," Isaac suggested.

"Do you have any idea where he is yet?" Lydia asked Scott, finally turning away from the haunting sight. Scott shook his head. "No clue at all?"

"He said he thinks he's in an industrial basement somewhere," Scott told her. Beside him, Isaac nodded.

"We came here to get a better scent."

"And we called _you_ to do a spell," Scott said, turning to me. I nodded, expecting as much. "Do you need anything?"

I looked around me, shook my head. "I'm sure I can find everything I need here. I mean, blood works best, but unless we call his dad..."

"You haven't called his dad?" Lydia accused, widening her eyes at Scott. Scott shrunk back a little. A wise choice, in my opinion.

"He made my promise not to," Scott defended, looking away. "We can find him by scent."

"You better," she warned, taking a step closer. "It's the coldest night of the year, and he's out there, alone, and scared."

"You think I don't know that?" Scott asked her, shaking his head. "He's my best friend. All I want to do is call his dad, but I promised I wouldn't, so I won't. We can find him. If he's sleepwalking, he can't have gone far."

"He's not sleepwalking," Josh said as he stood beside the window, peering out. "His Jeep's gone."

Jackson snorted. "So what, he sleep _drove_?"

"I'm calling his dad," Lydia decided, rooting around in her purse.

"Lydia, wait," Scott tried, holding out a hand.

"You promised you wouldn't call him," she said. "I didn't."

"I can call Derek," Scott argued, pulling her attention away from her phone. "I can call Allison."

"Everyone except for the cops," Lydia laughed, nodding. " _Great_ idea."

"Scott," I said quietly, ignoring his hopeless wince. "Lydia heard Stiles. She only hears things like that when someone's about to die."

Scott was quiet for a long moment. Then... "You don't have to call his dad. It's five minutes to the station."

I nodded, pleased. "We'll catch up," Lydia surprised me by saying. When everyone turned to her, she shook her head. "There's something here. I know there is."

Scott nodded, and turned to Josh and I. "Then let's go."

* * *

"What do you think is wrong with him?" Josh asked me as we parked up beside Scott's bike, where he and Isaac waited. I shook my head. I had been asking myself that same question since I'd laid eyes on the state of his room, and I still didn't know. Don't get me wrong, I had my thoughts. Crazy thought. Too crazy to fully comprehend. And yet, there they were; Allison's words, floating around my head. Someone who wasn't their usual self. Someone possessed.

I shook my head, clearing the thoughts from my mind. "I don't know. But we can worry about that once he's safe." Josh nodded, agreeing, and we both climbed out of the car, slamming the doors firmly behind us. Scott's feet were tapping anxiously.

"He's gonna kill me," Scott said quietly, breathing out heavily.

"He'll handle it, Scott," I told him, wrapping an arm around his and pulling him towards the big clear doors, pushing on them hard. "He's handled worse."

"Yeah," Scott said quietly, nodding his head. "That's why he's gonna kill me."

We both looked over to the woman behind the desk, smiled as I dropped Scott's arm.

"Hi," Scott said, clearing his throat. "Is the sheriff here? I need to-"

"Scott!" a familiar voice called, drawing our attention away. The sheriff looked tired. Exhausted, actually. Even so, he just about managed to smile, even if it did look a little forced. He gestured with his head, nodded back the way he had come, and we followed.

"Listen, Sheriff," Scott started, clearing his throat again as Josh and Isaac trailed along behind us. "We, uh... Oh, hey, Mr Wilson."

I looked up, looked into the sheriff's office, saw my own dad sitting in one of the chairs lining the wall. I huffed.

The sheriff shut the door behind us as we all shuffled in, making sure no one would hear the conversation we were about to have. "I know about Stiles. Nick came down and filled me in."

"Despite being asked otherwise," I muttered, dropping down into the seat beside him. He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"Do you know anything yet?"

Scott shook his head at the sheriff's question. "I mean, his Jeep is gone, and he said he thinks he's in some sort of basement. A big one, maybe industrial."

"Okay, okay," the sheriff said, nodding to himself as he went to the door, swung it wide. "That's something. Parrish!" A young looking deputy came running at his name, stopped in front of the sheriff expectantly. "I need you to issue an APB out on a blue, 1980 CJ-5 Jeep. Got it?" The deputy nodded, hurried back to his desk as the sheriff called out. "And someone get me a list of any kind of industrial basement or sub-level of any building that someone could get into while sleepwalking." The sheriff closed the door behind that last order, leant against it with a weary sigh. "Okay, okay. What can we do that they can't?"

"Amber's gonna try something," Isaac filled in, looking back at me as I nodded.

"And we can try to catch his scent," Scott suggested too, watching the Sheriff carefully. "We'll find him."

The sheriff nodded, slowly. Then he turned to me. "What do you need?"

"I assume you have a map?" I questioned, standing and following when he marched over to his desk, to the large map of the county that covered it. "Okay, so... the next request might seem a little weird." The sheriff looked over at me, his eyebrows down low. "I kinda need your blood. I mean, I can do it with something of Stiles' too, if that's easier, but-"

"Which is quicker?" he asked me, not one hint of discomfort in his voice.

"The blood," I told him, nodding as he reached into his draw and rifled through it, searching for something sharp. After pulling out a safety pin and holding it up for me to see, I nodded. "That'll do."

He pressed the tip of the pin to his finger, gentle at first, and then harder, until a little bead of red began to swell under it. I nodded again, grabbing his hand at pulling it closer to the surface of the map, squeezing it gently to push the blood out.

"Sheriff, we- Oh," the deputy, Parrish, stopped half way into the room, staring at the sheriff's blood dripping onto the map, all of us watching like it was no big deal. The sheriff sighed.

"What is it, Parrish?"

Parrish cleared his throat, shaking his head and looking away. "We, uh... We found it, sir. We found the Jeep."

"You've got it?" he asked, just to be sure. The hope in his voice hurt my heart. Parrish nodded.

"Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital," he said, nodding and looking at me weird before ducking out again. The sheriff looked at me, wide eyed and expectant.

"Go, go," I told him, waving him off. "I've got enough here if he's not there."

The sheriff raced out of the room after his deputy, Scott and Isaac following close behind after a quick nod from me, and I was left alone with my dad and brother.

"So," Daddy said as he got to his feet and wandered over to the sheriff's desk. "How does this work, exactly?"

I smiled. I liked it when he asked questions like that. It made the whole thing seem less hush-hush, less of something to hide and be ashamed of. I liked that he was interested in that part of me, however new and scary it still was to him. It was the kind of support I didn't think I'd ever get from a parent. Not without Mom. "I say a few words over the map, and the blood will move."

"It just..." Daddy frowned, leaning a little closer. "It just moves? On it's own?"

I nodded. "I know, it's weird. But I guess it's like the blood is trying to locate more of the same."

"So, how would it have worked with something of Stiles'?" he asked, examining the blood on the table. With that inquisitive, slightly confused yet still oddly fascinated look on his face, all I could think of was Josh. It surprised me how alike they looked sometimes. "You said you could do it without the blood."

"If I have something that belongs to the person I'm looking for, I can use a different spell to locate them," I told him, catching Josh's amused look at Daddy's reaction to this whole scenario. "I get a vision of what where they are. There are other spells too, but they're usually the easiest to do, given what's needed."

"Interesting," Daddy hummed, his head tipping to the side. I smiled.

* * *

"Is that supposed to happen?" I heard Daddy ask from across the desk, interrupting my spell.

I peeked an eye open, saw Daddy and Josh staring at the map between us in confusion, and looked down to see why. Instead of the usual trail of blood that led from the centre of the map to wherever the target was located, this time, there were two trails. One, headed over to one end of the map, almost towards the hospital. The other, in the complete opposite direction, as though heading towards the preserve. I slumped.

"No," I answered, huffing and dropping into the sheriff's seat. "No, that ain't supposed to happen."

"So why..." Josh trailed off, leaning closer to try to figure out the mystery. I shrugged.

"I don't know," I said honestly, shaking my head.

"But they found his Jeep at the hospital, right?" Daddy encouraged, gesturing to the blood, continuing it's remaining journey and pooling somewhere nearby. "Sure, it was abandoned, but he can't have gone far from there."

"Or so we hope," I muttered, watching Daddy wipe away the blood, a little disgust on his face, and peer closer to the map.

"What's Eichen house?" he asked me, perking my interest.

"What?"

"Eichen House," he repeated, pointing at the map, at the building now smeared in blood, annotated with the words EICHEN HOUSE. "That's where the blood stopped."

All roads lead to Eichen House, apparently, because in that moment, my phone pinged, signalling a message. Josh grabbed it from the table, read the words that lit up on the screen.

"It's from Scott," he told me, his face relaxing a little. "He said Lydia thinks he's at Eichen House. They're headed over there now."

I nodded, breathing only a little easier. "Good," I murmured, staring down at the map, at the two reflecting trails on either side of the map. One trail of blood said Eichen House. Lydia said Eichen House. Mom said Eichen House was somewhere I could go if I needed help. Surely that meant he was there, right?

And yet, somehow... I couldn't tear my mind away from that second trail.

* * *

I was probably tired. That was probably it. Between the late night, the very, _very_ early wake up call, and all the anxiety and stress that followed, I was absolutely exhausted. Maybe my magic was playing up a little, my physical fatigue taking a toll. It happens. Still, no matter how much I tried to convince myself as I poured some terrible station coffee that it all made sense that way, that they were going to find Stiles at Eichen house, it wouldn't stick. The worry and the nerves didn't leave, my stomach was still in knots, and I just couldn't relax.

I was chewing my bottom lip as I stirred the sugar into my coffee as a door opened up behind me, a horribly familiar voice making itself known in the obnoxious way I was hoping I wouldn't hear again for a while.

"Is this the exact transcript of Scott and Stiles' phone call?"

I turned, caught sight of Agent McCall looking down at Parrish sat at his computer as the latter nodded. "It's what he gave us."

"But these words," McCall continued, reading off the paper in his hands. "Stiles says, 'Something smells terrible. My eyes are watering'." Parrish nodded again, not sure what else to tell the agent, when a much friendlier voice sounded from the other side.

"Hi, I'm Melissa McCall," I heard her say from the front desk. "I was hoping to see Agent McCall." At the sound that I'm sure he heard too, McCall marched forward, waving Scott's mom in.

"What are you doing here?" he asked her, his tone almost friendly.

"My shift was over," she told him, following him back towards the sheriff's office, the deputies' desks. "I just wanted to see if I could help." She turned slightly then, caught sight of me sipping on my terrible excuse for coffee. "Amber, hey. What are you doing down here?"

I shrugged, looking over at the agent cautiously as he studied me. "Scott called me, after Stiles called him. I figured I'd try to help too." From her smile, she knew what I was getting at. "I think they're headed over to Eichen House now. It's pretty near to the hospital, and Lydia had a thought."

"You're Scott's friend," the agent said then, ignoring Melissa's sigh. "You were at the hospital with Stiles a few months ago, during that big storm." I nodded, not even surprised that it took him that long to place me. Then he _did_ surprise me. "You don't think he's at Eichen House."

I opened my mouth, not sure how to respond for a second. Melissa seemed just as put off. "What are you getting at?" she asked him, filling in for my inability to make noise.

"She doesn't think he's at Eichen House," he repeated, slower this time. "Whatever thought this Lydia had, you think otherwise. Why?"

I shrugged, giving myself time to think. "Just a hunch," I landed on, terribly. Hey, I couldn't exactly tell him my spell didn't work, could I?

"A hunch?" he said again, raising an eyebrow. I nodded. "Where do you think he is?" I shrugged once more, self-conscious now. "I'm not sure, exactly," I told him honestly. "But my hunch tells me he's in the preserve somewhere."

Agent McCall looked at me for a long second, and despite how much I didn't like him, I couldn't ignore the fact that he was smart enough to know something was up here. I had a feeling he wasn't going to let it slide. Then he nodded. "That's a hell of a stretch," he said, and I swallowed. Melissa's eyes were flicking between the two of us, ready to interrupt at any second. "But I've got a hunch, too."

* * *

 **I'll be honest, I didn't proofread this very well, because I'm tired and just wanted to upload it already. Also,** **Teen Wolf is on the UK Netflix now, so yay! I mean, only the first two seasons, but it's a start.**

 **Thanks for reading, guys. Stay Fetch.**


	6. Going Dark From Time to Time

**So, it's been a while...**

 **Let's not talk about it. Or anything that's happening in Season 6 because I haven't started it yet.**

 **To my lovely AshleyMarieD, thank you for your review! Also, I'm glad there weren't any obvious mistakes that you could see, at least. And a massive thank you and hello to Zeskia! I'm so glad you liked the series so far, I did notice you favourited the stories (and me!), so thank you for that too. I like your thinking, but although I have it all planned out, I'm going to stay quiet on the matter for now. Guess you'll just have to wait and see what happens! ;)**

 **And to BerbDCat, who recently started the series and reviewed a couple of chapters from Occult, Gods & Monsters and this story too, Hello! I know we've already had a lovely chat, but I thought I'd reply to your other reviews here. Thank you so much for the comments, and I can see someone is also a fan of Malia! I'm happy you still understood the TVD stuff, even if you haven't watched the show. I don't think you really need to have watched the show to get to know Rebekah, and to get the pieces that will come into the story later, but if something gets a little confusing, just let me know.**

 **I don't own Teen Wolf. Shock Horror.**

* * *

"Woah, where the hell are you going?" I asked Agent McCall, standing between him and the door he tried to run out of. He didn't seem to like the interruption. "You can't just run off without telling me anything."

"Do you want me to find Stiles, or not?" he questioned, his eyes hard in a way I'd never seen Scott's. Something I was glad of.

"Of course I want you to find him," I said, folding my arms over my chest. "But you can't just leave me hanging with 'I have a hunch too'. That ain't cool."

He huffed, closing his eyes for a second. "He could be hypothermic already. I don't have time to explain it."

"Let me go with you," I suggested, my eyes wide. It was a hard chance that anyone with Scott for a kid wouldn't be immune to the puppy eyes, but it was worth a shot.

At his scoff, however, I figured I'd failed. "No way," he said, smiling, all sarcasm.

"We'll both go with you," Melissa said before I could begin pleading. When Agent McCall opened his mouth to argue, she shook her head. "It's not a question, or a suggestion. It's happening." He huffed, but didn't try to argue again. He made his way towards the front doors, leading out into the parking lot, and Melissa waited a second to put her hands on my arms, rubbing softly. "I don't want scare you or anything, but he might not be entirely himself if we find him."

I shook my head. "After all this, I'd be more scared if he were himself."

If Agent McCall's hunch was right, if my hunch was right, Stiles was out in the open, had been all night, alone, and cold, and terrified. If they were right, for some strange reason, Stiles' had been convinced that he was in a basement somewhere, when he'd actually been far from any kind of industrial basement. If they were right, he'd driven his Jeep to the hospital, abandoned it there, and then walked all the way back across town and through the woods, and didn't remember a thing. All of that, on top of the conversation we'd had in the hall yesterday...

Something was wrong with Stiles. Something was seriously wrong.

* * *

I know I've said this a lot during my time around the Wonder Twins, but that car ride was the longest, most uncomfortable car ride I'd ever experienced.

Not only were we essentially racing to wherever it was that McCall thought Stiles was, police lights on and all, but aside from Melissa and I, none of the people in the car liked each other. I hadn't had the best start with Scott's dad, he didn't like me because - and this is an assumption, but a correct one, I'm sure - of my association with Stiles and his sarcasm, Melissa hated him for unknown but probably totally understandable reasons, and the feelings she felt for him were painfully obviously reciprocated.

The whole thing was just torture.

"So, what are you saying?" Melissa asked Agent McCall, eyeing him from the passenger seat.

"I'm saying the real question might be, how do we know he's not still asleep?" he responded, barely sparing her a glance as he concentrated on the road.

"You mean he's been asleep this whole time?"

"Scott talked to him," I reminded the agent, leaning forward a little in my seat. "He had a full conversation with him over the phone."

"Well, he was obviously sleepwalking, wherever he ended up, right?" he questioned, raising his eyebrows at me in the rearview mirror. "People who sleepwalk can do crazy things. One guy goes down to the kitchen and cooks an entire meal. Another guy is found mowing his lawn. Naked."

"Why does any of that matter?" Melissa asked him, eager to get to the point.

He turned to her slightly, narrowing his eyes. "You remember that townhouse apartment we lived in?" Melissa nodded, smiling a little. "There was one night I came home drunk-" At that comment, Melissa snorted, a loud, sarcastic sound I was not used to hearing from her. I liked it. "Yeah, okay, not in present company. So, I'm drunk, passed out on the bed. I get up to go to the bathroom. Then, all of a sudden, I hear you yelling 'What the hell are you doing?!'."

Melissa laughed slightly. "Because you were in the closet, peeing into the laundry basket!" Agent McCall nodded.

"Yeah, I thought it was the bathroom."

"Oh, no, you were drunk off your ass."

"Yeah, okay," he admitted, shrugging a shoulder. "But I was convinced that it was the bathroom. So how do we know Stiles isn't just convinced he's in some kind of basement, but isn't actually there?"

"So you think he's been asleep all along?" I asked him, leaning my head against the back of Melissa's seat. "Even when he called Scott?" He nodded.

"So if he's not in a basement, where is he?" Melissa asked, frowning over to his side.

Agent McCall's eyes flicked to mine again with another shrug. "I got a hunch about that, too."

His hunch, as it turns out, led us to Malia's coyote den.

"He's been here before," I told them as we ventured further from the car, nearer to the scene of Malia's grisly deaths. Scott's dad had been here that night too, Mr Tate at his side. The man in question nodded at me now, telling me he was thinking of the same night I was.

"What were you guys even doing out here that night?" he asked me, leading the way through the woods, holding the branched aside for Melissa and I to pass through in a manner I was not expecting from him.

I cleared my throat. "Um... Exploring. Just... checking out the woods." Agent McCall just hummed, like he didn't believe a word I was saying. Couldn't really blame him.

We were silent most of the short walk through the woods from the car, and I couldn't help but notice the treads in the dirt ahead of us. It wasn't quite footprints. More like a shuffle print, messy and uneven. When we finally hit the cave that had once housed Malia, I slowed, unsure of if I really wanted to see what was inside. Scott's dad must have noticed.

"Okay, you two stay here a sec," he said, ducking down a little to try to peer into the cave. "I'm gonna see if he's in there, just wait here."

I nodded, unconsciously stepping closer to Melissa, who wrapped an arm around my shoulders. It was easy to see why she meant so much to Scott.

"Stiles came by the hospital yesterday afternoon," she told me quietly as Scott's dad slowly crawled into the cave, his phone lighting the way. "He was worried. He said he'd barely been sleeping, had paralysing nightmares when he did. Said he'd been having blackouts."

I nodded. "He's had a lot going on the last few days," I said, biting my thumbnail as I watched the cave entrance eagerly. "He thinks he's been doing things that he can't have possibly done. Things that he wouldn't do." Melissa nodded slowly. Almost gravely.

"Things that he wouldn't normally do," she corrected, holding me a little tighter. It didn't comfort me at all anymore.

"There's something wrong with him, ain't there?"

She didn't have time to answer, whether it was an answer I wanted to hear or not, because it was then that the screaming started. Stiles' screaming.

Melissa was quick to move, jumping forward and helping Agent McCall pull Stiles from the cave, all the while he screamed and begged them to stop, sounds that had my breathing catch, had my heart in my throat. As soon as she could, Melissa reached her arms around him and just held him, trying to calm him down, to stop him from trying to get away. After a while, it seemed to work. It was like he was finally waking up, finally coming back to himself, like he recognised it was Melissa who held him, his best friend's mom, and not whatever had been haunting him.

It wasn't until I caught Agent McCall's eye, until I saw him nod at me, concerned, that I realised I was crying.

* * *

Stiles didn't really say anything on the ride to the hospital. He didn't didn't really do much of anything, actually. He just stared, at nothing in particular. He barely blinked. I think maybe he was scared to.

Melissa had called Scott, who, in turn, had called my brother, Derek and the twins, who had, apparently, been trying to make themselves useful and catch a scent, to let everyone know that Stiles had been found and was, for the most part, okay. He was alive, at least. We could deal with everything else later. I was going to have to look through my grimoire. See if there were any kind of recipes for restless sleep or anxiety. Other than that and holding his hand, as I currently was, I couldn't really think of anything else I could do. There was nothing else I could do. I was pretty much useless right now, and I hated it.

"I'm okay," he tried to convince me later as he sat on the edge of a hospital bed, waiting for his dad to arrive. I scoffed, still a little teary eyed.

"No, you ain't," I said, thinking that now was not the right time to mince my words. "And it's okay to not be okay right now. I ain't even okay right now."

Stiles didn't laugh as I had hoped, but the smile on his dirty face didn't seem completely forced. "Sorry about that. I didn't... I didn't really know what was going on. I still don't."

I nodded, figuring as much, but not wanting to relive the whole experience. "Do you think this has something to do with before? With what happened after the Nemeton?"

"I don't know," Stiles said honestly, shaking his head, before ducking it a little, holding it in his hands. "Maybe. Maybe it's something else entirely. Maybe it's not even supernatural."

I frowned. The way he said it didn't feel like a 'maybe'. "You think you know what it is?"

Stiles didn't answer me outright. He shook his head a little, more of a retreat than a definitive answer, sniffed. He looked so small then, so young. I forget that, sometimes. I forget that we're all just teenagers, with homework and hormones to deal with alongside this parallel life we seem to be living. I forget how fragile we all are. And Stiles looked so very, dangerously fragile right then.

I took a few steps forward, standing in between his legs and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, holding him tight to me. Despite the odd heights, his face buried in my shoulder and mine in his hair, the gesture still seemed to be appreciated. It definitely helped to steady me, anyway.

"Whatever it is, we'll find a way to fight it," I promised him, squeezing just a little. His arms around my waist squeezed back, and they didn't let go. "Okay?"

He nodded against my shoulder, almost reluctantly, and otherwise didn't reply. He hadn't needed to, before a raised voice started making its way down the hallway, terrified and tearful. The Sheriff. I felt Stiles perk, and I let go, squeezing his shoulder for a second before dropping my hands completely and backing up towards the door, leaning around to see down the hall. It was only a second later that the man turned the corner, marching towards me, on a mission. I didn't say anything, just stood to the side to let the Sheriff past me, a small smile thrown my way before he turned into the room and disappeared.

I didn't stay. It would have felt intrusive, remaining to watch them try to comfort one another. So, instead, I made my way to the waiting room, where I knew everyone else would soon be meeting, weary from the night's events. Melissa and Scott's dad were already there, talking quietly, Daddy and Josh calling me soon after to check up on me, offering to come if I needed them, despite my arguments. It wasn't until Scott showed up, though, that everything really seemed to sink in. The look on his face when he skidded into the hall, the panic in his voice as his mom caught him up on what had happened, the fear I could feel in my bones, radiating off of him like heat. That's when I felt the sob rising in my throat, the tears stinging at my eyes. I didn't think about it as I stood, didn't realise what I was doing until Scott turned to me, his own face dropping, just a little, and wrapped his arms around me.

I had figured it would come, eventually. Scott was my alpha, I was his witch. It was only a matter of time, but I still came as a shock when it slipped into place in my head. Scott was my safe place. Scott was my home. And that was just a little too much for me to handle tonight.

* * *

"I just don't understand it," Lydia said quietly, her coat in her lap, hands twisting in each other tightly. "He was there, I was sure of it. I was so sure."

I rested a hand over hers, turning in my seat beside her so as to properly look at her. "I know. I don't understand it either."

"Your spell," Lydia started, not quite looking up from the hospital floor as she lowered her voice, quiet enough for the unaware agent a few feet from us to remain that way. "That didn't work either, right?" I nodded.

"It was like it couldn't make up its mind," I told her, biting my thumbnail. "Something was pulling it one way, another in the opposite direction. Like there was two of him." I squeezed Lydia's hands a little, trying to pull her out of that stare. I didn't like that look on her face. That wasn't the Lydia I knew. "Don't beat yourself up about it, Lyds. You did everything you could."

She laughed, but it wasn't a pleasant sound. "If Scott's dad hadn't been here, if he hadn't figured out the smell, 'everything I could' wouldn't mean anything," she said, shaking her head, eyes filling. "Stiles would have died out there."

"But Scott's dad is here," I reminded her, watching the man, surprisingly and begrudgingly grateful for the man's presence. "He is here, and he did figure it out." She shook her head again, so I held on tighter. "Stiles is okay. He's going to be okay."

"What if he's not?" she asked, finally turning to look at me. "I was sure he was in Eichen House. Your spell agreed with me. What if there's a reason for that?"

She had a point. There probably was a reason for that. A reason that was old, and dark, and preyed on the turmoil and the chaos that we so often found ourselves in. "Then we'll figure it out. And we'll all get through it. Together. Like we always do."

Lydia scoffed, her head slowing in back and forth motion. "And what if we're not enough this time?"

When Melissa jumped up from her seat after a few seconds of my silence, we all turned to see the Sheriff making his way to us, his head hanging, weary and sad. Lydia and I stood up to, Jackson resting a hand in Lydia's as Scott pushed forward, watching the Sheriff carefully.

"He's sleeping," the Sheriff told us, nodding at Scott. "He's okay. The doctor said he's just fine." The sighs of relief were audible, even from Jackson, whom Lydia turned into, sagging at the news. "He doesn't remember much. It's a bit like a dream to him." He turned to Scott's dad, then, a more open and vulnerable expression on his face than I'd ever seen of either of the Stilinski men. "Thank you," he said to the agent, nodding just a little.

"It was that... repellent we sprayed," he explained, as though the moment needed an explanation. Lydia ducked her head. "The one we sprayed in the coyote den, to keep the other animals out. I couldn't go near it without my eyes watering." He shrugged as I rolled my eyes. "It's just a good thing he mentioned it over the phone."

"No, it was more than that," the Sheriff tried again. "Thank you."

Scott's dad shrugged again, and I caught Melissa swearing under her breath in frustration at the man behind his back. I smiled. "It was a lucky connection."

The Sheriff groaned. "McCall, can you shut up, please, and accept my sincerest gratitude?"

After a beat, the agent held out his hand, nodding. "Accepted."

To cover the awkward tension, Melissa turned to the rest of us and smiled. "Okay, you guys have school in less than six hours," she reminded us, something I desperately did not want to be reminded of. "Go home, get some sleep." Scott nodded, giving his mom a peck on the cheek and steering us all out, Jackson's hand still in Lydia's as he pulled her along behind us.

"He's gonna be okay," Scott said, and it wasn't until I saw that he was looking in my direction as we made our way down the hospital hall that I realised he wasn't talking to himself. At least not entirely.

"I know," I told him, nodding and trying to smile. I don't think it really worked.

"Lyds?" I heard, stopping and turning to see the couple behind us paused, Lydia staring at something behind her. Jackson looked back at us, confused, before tugging on her arm again. She didn't budge. "Do you hear something?"

It took her a few moments, but she did eventually respond. "No," she said, turning back to us and catching my eye for a second, only to shake her head and return her gaze to the floor. "I didn't hear anything."

* * *

"It's not the first time a spell hasn't turned our perfectly, Am," Allison reminded me, her calm voice almost soothing as I stared into my locker, not entirely sure what I was looking for anymore. "I'm sure it's nothing to be worried about."

"I know, I know," I murmured, tapping my fingers against the metal of my locker door. "But at least I know where I'm going wrong most of the time. I don't believe in my magic, I'm injured, an evil Darach has stolen all my power. This... This one should have worked."

"But it didn't, and nobody died," Allison said, reaching in front of me to pull out my textbook and closing the door shut.

"Stiles nearly did."

"Nearly," Allison repeated, turning me to face her. "But he didn't. He's okay."

I scoffed. "He's not okay."

"No, okay, something is obviously wrong." Allison squeezed my arms a little, trying to comfort me. "But he's alive. And he doctors are gonna find out what's wrong, and then they can help him." I nodded, ignoring the knot growing in my stomach. What if they couldn't? "So, for know, we all need to stay positive, and normal, and not freak out. Because that's the last thing Stiles needs right now."

I nodded once more, before turning to look up at her as she led us to our next class. "Okay, so I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Scott hasn't managed to bring himself into full consciousness since last night, and Lydia's having a full blown existential crisis. How can you be so calm at a time like this?"

Allison shrugged a shoulder. "Argent training. I don't look forward to the day that compartmentalising my feelings is necessary, let me tell you." Then, a thought must have struck her. "Hey, you don't happen to speak Japanese, do you?"

* * *

"You're right, it's Japanese," Mr Yukimura agreed, holding Allison's phone as someone shouted through the speakers in Japanese. The confirmation that she and Isaac had been right about the language didn't seem to quell her uneasiness at finding the several, similarly foreign voicemails on her phone last night. I can't say I blamed her. "Who left this on your phone?"

Allison shrugged, shaking her head. "I don't know. All of the messages are the same, and they all say 'blocked ID'."

"Can you translate it?" Isaac asked, standing uncomfortably close to Allison as I leant against the desk beside our teacher, listening closely to the voicemail. What can I say? I'm still Team Scott.

"Mostly," Mr Yukimura said, nodding slowly. "The man speaking is giving instructions, actually. The first line is, "All evacuees are required to stay at least ten feet back from the outside fences."

"What does that mean?" Isaac asked, Allison's eyebrows lowering over her eyes as she looked at me. "What fences?"

Mr Yukimura continued. "The fences surrounding a Japanese internment camp during World War II," he said. "After Pearl Harbour, Japanese-Americans were rounded up and put into camps." I scoffed. Gross. "This man is reading instructions to prisoners upon their arrival." He handed Allison's phone back to her, standing from his position beside me.

"Well, where does something like this come from?" Allison asked him, still as hopelessly confused as we always seemed to be. Mr Yukimura shrugged.

"I don't know," he told us, shaking his head. "Because it's fake. It mentions the name of the internment camp as 'Oak Creek'. But there was no internment camp named Oak Creek in California."

It took us a little while to wrap our heads around that little tidbit of information, I'll admit.

"So, and stop me if I'm wrong here," I started once Mr Yukimura had left to chase a student down the hall after throwing an expletive at a friend. "It seems as though these voicemails are from officials directing Japanese prisoners during World War II around a camp that never existed."

"That sounds about right," Isaac muttered as Allison huffed.

"Okay," I said, nodding. "So, where do we start? The Japanese war prison, the fake camp, or the fact that this message is from World War II?"

* * *

"Am, you really need to put that thing down," Allison advised as she sped towards the hospital, Isaac in the backseat, sulking like the sad little puppy he is. "You haven't stopped since we left school."

Disgruntled, I threw the flimsy copy of my grimoire to the back seat with a huff, crossing my arms over my chest. "Not like it's done much good anyway," I told her, shaking my head. "There's nothing in there to help Stiles, nothing about that location spell last night, there's not even anything about your ring." Allison smiled as she admired said piece of jewellery a little more, pleased. "It's useless. A waste of space."

"If that was the real thing you were talking about and not a bunch of photcopies, it would have zapped you for that," Allison chided, still smiling as Isaac lent forward.

"That was a joke... Right?"

Allison shook her head. "I accidentally kicked her grimoire once. Then the next time I tried to touch it, I got an electric shock."

Isaac took a second to process that. "A book... You got an electric shock from a book." Allison nodded.

"I think she was just overreacting. I mean, it's a book," I tried to convince the both of them, even though I had experienced similar oddities myself. Totally explainable with science though. Totally.

"It's a magical book," Allison reminded me, grinning. "And I would not underestimate it. It might try to smother you in your sleep."

Isaac lent back, quiet for a minute. Then... "Everything about the both of you terrifies me a little bit."

Allison seemed to like that comment.

When we finally arrived at the hospital, tired and confused as a result of our everlasting day, Isaac perked up, his ears twitching.

"What?" Allison asked, turning in her seat as Isaac leant forward again, this time to stare through the windshield towards the big building. "What is it?"

"Something's wrong," he said quietly, seconds before launching himself out of the car. It didn't take us long to follow him.

As we neared the hospital, I noticed something, flying through the air, and sparkling. If it wasn't immediately obvious that this was dangerous for anyone near it, it could have been almost pretty.

At a familiar voice, I looked up, seeing Kira across the parking lot, her eyes wide and terrified as she stared at the ambulance, smoking at the bonnet. After a second, the door swung open, revealing a bleeding paramedic at the wheel, trying to get out. At the sight, Isaac stepped forward to help him, even as Kira screamed for everyone to stop. But it was too late. The second Isaac's foot came down, making ripples in the shallow puddle surrounding the scene, he stilled, then tightened, falling to the ground in a spasm. I heard Allison yell out his name, felt the shocks run through my own body, just barely, saw the paramedic fall to the floor beside the truck. Other people were getting out of their cars, trying to see what all the fuss was about, only to collapse a second later, the water spreading throughout the lot.

"We need to move," Allison said, her tone wavering from the tears in her throat. She pulled at my arm, pulled me back as the water crept further afield, endangering more lives as it went.

Then, as a car sped a little too closely to Kira, she jumped, up onto the roof of the car and then over, landing in the electrified puddle with a splash and a wince. She stood up, the large, sparkling wire that had caused all of this carnage flailing about uncontrollably in front of her. And she reached out, and took hold of it in her hand. Like it was nothing. Even as I tried to make sense of whatever the hell was happening, Kira reached up with her free hand and cupped it over the torn, open end of the wire, blocking the sparks and the danger with her own body. The lights around us started to flicker, and Kira's eyes began to glow. And then, just like that... it was over.

I have to admit. It was pretty damn awesome.

Allison didn't take the second like I did to appreciate the moment, instead running to Isaac's side, now that it was safe to approach his still form, lying in the puddle. Derek got their first, out of nowhere, and they both dropped to Isaac's side, reaching out to help him. That's when Derek called out to Scott, his voice strained from the weight of his words.

"He's not breathing."

The weekend passed in a blur. Isaac was in intensive care, unable to be visited by anyone that wasn't family, and Stiles had disappeared completely, nowhere to be found. Everyone was looking for him; Scott had the other wolves out trawling the preserve, Lydia and Allison drove every street, every alleyway in the county, the whole police department were on the lookout for his Jeep, and I spent the whole weekend in my room with a map and some more of the Sheriff's blood. Even Chris Argent was out, using all of this tracking and hunting experience to help out. No one could find him. No one even came close.

* * *

I opened the door with a slam, hoping to wake the werewolf sleeping way past his alarm that Monday morning with a start. Instead, he grumbled.

"Is there any news?" Scott asked me, rolling over a little, enough to show me his face, puffy and red with exhaustion and, knowing Scott, probably more than a few tears. Unfortunately, I had to shake my head.

"I was kind of hoping you'd have some for me," I admitted, wandering in to sit on the side of his bed, hands in my lap. "I know you know something that you're not telling me."

Scott sighed, sitting up. "You don't want to know what I'm not telling you."

"Probably not," I agreed, nodding. "But I still think I need to." Scott was quiet for a long time. A very long time. "It was Stiles, wasn't it?"

Scott didn't answer right away. "When he went missing... the first time he went missing, Derek, Isaac and I traced his scent to the roof of the hospital. We lost it there, but there was something about his scent... Sometimes, if someone is feeling something particularly strong, we can smell it in their scent. And up on that roof, I could smell the stress. Stiles was struggling with something." Scott looked up at me, his eyes unbearably sad. "He was struggling with himself. With what he was being made to do."

I nodded, my eyes burning. "So those people who died last night. Isaac. Everything that happened with Barrow."

"There's something inside Stiles, and it's making him kill people." Scott shook his head, tearing up. "And I don't know how to stop it." He dropped his head into his hands, pulling at his hair until I pulled them away. When he looked up, his face was crumpled, his eyes watery. "He's my best friend," he said, quietly, almost a whimper. "He's my best friend, and he's gone, and I don't know how to help him."

I sniffed, shuffling around to face him properly. "We're gonna figure it out," I told him, my voice steady as the rock I think we both need right then. "If it's the last thing we do, we're gonna get Stiles back. I promise."

* * *

I was lacing up my sneakers in the locker room, completely oblivious to the world around me, when I felt the weight of someone on th bench beside me. I sighed, turning to see Kira's face, filled with sympathy.

"Did Scott find you?" I asked her, dropping both sneakered feet to the floor and turning a little to look at her. She nodded.

"I told him everything I know," she said, her lips twisting in thought. "I mean, it's not like I know a lot, but..."

"Every little helps," I told her, trying my hardest to smile. She seemed to appreciate it. "C'mon," I said, standing up and stretching. "I think I could use this run."

Kira smiled now, standing beside me and leading the way out. "Maybe one time we could run together?" she asked, almost sheepishly. It was sweet. "I don't know the area well, and I know me. I'd get lost out in the woods or something."

I snorted. "Trust me, you would not be the first of us to do that."

* * *

Kira and I were preparing for our run, stretching our legs and swinging our arms about when Danny approached. He smiled, swinging an arm around my shoulders.

"And how's my favourite running buddy this morning?" I raised an eyebrow, and he retreated. "Yeah, bad question. Sorry. But I know what'll make you feel better..." I smiled as Danny crouched a little, ready in his starting stance, challenging me.

"You think you're up for it, Mahealani?" I asked him, barely restraining the smile. That boy certainly knew how to brighten my day.

"Oh, I'm up for it, alright," he said, narrowing his eyes playfully. "What about you, Kira? You want in?"

Kira's eyes widened a second, confused. "In on what?"

"Just a good old fashioned race," Danny said, stretching himself out. "Nothing too serious, just a little bit of friendly competition."

"Though he will throw you off the track if you're winning," I warned, grinning at Danny's hurt expression.

"I would never," he promised Kira, glaring at me. I smiled, even giggled a little, to my surprise, but that moment was quickly ruined by a familiar tingling up my spine, a deep, grumbling sound coming from inside my own head. Scott. I turned, ready to head back down towards the school, when Coach's whistle cut through the noise of the roar. As he began barking orders, Danny turned to me, his eyebrows low. "Everything okay?"

I wasn't sure. "Something's up with Scott."

"Is he hurt?"

I shook my head this time, sure. This was something else.

"Listen," Danny started, as Kira looked on a few feet away, twiddling her fingers. "Jackson and the twins are with him. I'm sure he's fine. You'd know if it was something serious." He was right, as usual. So when he tried to inch me back over to Kira, to Coach's starting position, I let him. Scott was fine, he had back up, and, if only for a little while, I needed the little bit of normalcy that this run would offer me. Everything would be fine.

Famous last words. Obviously.

* * *

Danny pushed past me an inch, before I pushed back, grinning as I overtook him once more. He seemed disgruntled, then seemed outright outraged when Kira passed him too, barely straining, and continued to put distance between them. I grinned at his face, falling in disbelief.

"What?!"

I laughed, breathless. "Dude, you haven't got a chance in hell of beating her." I laughed again as his frustration turned to realisation, and he muttered something about 'those damn werewolves'.

Our race continued, now for who could get second place, since Kira was nowhere to be found, and it looked as though I was winning. I left Danny to choke on my dust, racing forward happily enjoying the burning in my lungs and the sweat beading my forehead. Danny was right. This was exactly what I needed.

And then, just like that, the moment was ruined.

I was sprinting over the crest of a hill, faster than I had run in a long time, when I almost ran headlong into the small group of bodies huddled there. I managed to skid to a halt before I crashed into Kira, who put her hands out to steady me quickly.

"Thanks," I said, breathless, before turning to Scott. "What's going on?" Scott simply stared at me, his eyes wide, before I registered the other people here. Jackson, looking oddly concerned, the twins, angry as ever, and Stiles.

Stiles.

I felt a range of emotions over the next few seconds. Relief. Fear. Happiness. Confusion. Helplessness. Worry. In the end, I settled on anger.

"Where the hell have you been?!"

"Okay, look, hang on," Scott stopped me, holding up his hands. "You can be mad at him later, but right now, we have stuff to do."

I frowned. "What?" I asked, noticing, for the first time, the fear all over his face. "What's wrong?"

Stiles sighed. "I think I did something. Something bad."

"Well, that's not ominous at all," Kira murmured beside me, wrapping her arms around herself.

"What did you do?" I asked Stiles, who shrugged.

"I don't know," he admitted as the rest of the class started to approach us on their run. "I don't remember. Just… don't move." I looked around us, the floor, the trees. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and yet, Stiles was sure. I nodded, examining the forest floor around my feet more closely as Scott managed to slowly bring everyone crowding around us to a stop. Stiles ventured further afield, warily, eyeing the leaves decorating the track.

"Anything?" Scott asked him, and Stiles crouched down, grasping a metal hoop in answer. He pulled, and a thick chain followed, clinking in the quiet. Stiles pulled further, moving with it carefully, so as not to disturb whatever danger was on the other end of the chain.

Except… there was no danger on the other end. In fact, there was nothing.

Coach began to clap at the big reveal, wandering forward with an unimpressed look on his face. The clap echoed in my ears as my fingers began to tingle. That wasn't good.

"Congratulations, Stilinski," Coach muttered, still clapping away as he approached him, each crunch of the leaves under his feet tightening my muscles, turning my stomach.

"Coach," I warned, eyes darting around us, just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"You found a length of chain," Coach continued, ignoring me completely, wandering forward still.

"Coach," I said, louder this time, despite the waver in my voice. He turned, annoyed. "Move."

I felt it before it happened, like so often before. I think, though, that I could tell now. I knew. Even as the arrow pierced my stomach, even as the blood began to spill and the pain radiated through my body, I knew that this wasn't my pain. It wasn't my blood that was spilling over those unfamiliar hands. And a second later, when I came to, tears in my eyes, I made a move for Coach, launched myself forward to push him away from the danger that was coming.

I didn't make it. In the second that my feet left the ground, in the second that Scott called out to Coach, a whirring sound came from the trees, one that most people here wouldn't even notice. But Jackson did, and his reflexes were too quick to avoid, his arms wrapped around me too quickly to dodge. So when the arrow hit its target, Coach was in prime position, and completely unaware of his fate.

For a long, unbearable moment, everything was silent. Coach fell to the ground, and no one knew what to do. We fell to the ground beside him, scared, Coach lying there, unmoving.

And then, in pure Coach fashion, he started screaming.

"Get it out!"

"Coach, if we take it out, you could bleed out," I tried to remind him as Stiles pressed down around the wound, keeping pressure on it while Danny called 911.

"I'm gonna die," he decided to scream then, writhing around on the floor. I rolled my eyes. Okay, that was probably my bad. "I'm gonna die!"

"Coach," Stiles shouted, trying to distract the hysterical man. "You're not going to die."

"I'm gonna die!"

"It'll hurt less if you stop moving, Coach," one of the twins tried.

"I'm gonna die!"

"An ambulance is coming, Coach," Scott told him soothingly.

"Everyone get back," Jackson shouted, herding the onlookers further away. "Give him some roomm c'mon." Stiles looked to Scott, watching the crowd retreat, and nodded. Scott took Coach's hand, held tightly until his own veins turned black and he began wincing in pain. Then, just like that, Coach passed out.

"I could have killed him," Stiles said, his voice shaky and his hands covered in blood. "I could have killed him. If it was his head, or his throat…"

"But it wasn't," Scott reminded him, desperate. "He's gonna be alright."

Scott nodded at his friend, trying to comfort him, and the perked up, he and the twin looking off into the distance.

"I can hear the ambulance," the twin said, getting to his feet to lead them this way.

Stiles watched him leave as the sirens hit my own ears. "And my dad," Stiles said quietly, shakily.

"Okay," I warned him, raising a hand. "If you think I was pissed when I saw you, wait until you see your dad. You won't be leaving the house again until you've graduated college."

* * *

The look of overwhelming relief of the Sheriff's face when he pulled Stiles into a tight hug was actually too much to bare. So, instead, I turned to Scott.

"Why is no one dead?" I asked him, straight to the point.

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Jackson responded, leaning against Stiles' Jeep.

Scott shook his head. "She has a point. The other night, at the hospital, people died. And this thing inside Stiles has had a whole weekend to set up a plan, and this is it? It's done with one injured high school gym coach that's going to survive?"

"So, you're saying that this isn't it?" Jackson asked, frowning. "There's more to come?"

Scott didn't have time to answer, though I'm sure whatever he said wouldn't have been at all comforting, because one of the twins called him over.

"What is it now?" Jackson grumbled, sulking over as well. Scott was holding up a roll of paper, nicely decorated, and a half empty box of bolts, other boxes strewn around the back of the Jeep.

Scott turned to me, his eyes panicked. "That's the same wrapping paper we used on Coach's birthday present," he said quickly.

"Isn't that William Barrow's thing?" one of the twins asked. "A bomb made from nails and bolts, all wrapped in a birthday present?" After a long moment, he asked another question. "Where did it go off?"

"On a school bus."

* * *

Our fears were confirmed shortly afterwards when a quick spot check found a lovingly wrapped box on one of the buses. It had been left on one of the seats and picked up by a student when he got on, completely unaware of what could be in there.

"Can you do anything?" the Sheriff asked me, quietly, so no nosey ears would pick up on the conversation.

"I wouldn't even know where to begin," I said honestly, shaking my head. "My grimoire is still in Stiles' room, and I can't think of anything that could help without it. If you could get Jared out, I could maybe contain the explosion, or I could move the box, but…"

The Sheriff nodded. "But one bad turn and the whole thing goes up." I nodded too, frustrated. Though not, I'm sure, as frustrated as he was right now. "If you think of anything…"

"You'll be the first to know," I promised.

Stiles sidled up to me, his arms crossed over his chest, his fingers twitching nervously at him mouth. "If something was about to happen, if it was about to go off… Would you see it?"

"Probably," I admitted, nodding sadly. "But that doesn't mean we'd have enough time to stop it. There wasn't enough time with Coach." Stiles nodded, slowly, hesitantly, as Deputy Parrish approached the bus in full on bomb squad armour.

"Sheriff," I called from behind the railings separating the large crowd from the ticking time bomb of a school bus. He turned, distracted. "What the hell is he doing?"

The Sheriff approached the railing, keeping a close eye on his deputy as he entered the bus. "He's just going to take a closer look at it."

"Shouldn't he wait for someone a little more qualified?" Stiles asked, leaning forward.

"I tried to tell him," the Sheriff muttered, shrugging. "He worked with explosives during his time in the army. He insisted."

"Did you tell him how stupid an idea this is?" I said, watching him take slow steps up the bus through the windshield.

"Actually, yes," the Sheriff said, sighing. "More than once."

The next few minutes passed unbearably slowly. I paced. A lot. Jackson looked like he could use a drink. Stiles tapped anything in reach relentlessly. Scott barely moved.

"What's going on?" I asked the latter quietly after too much time had passed with no news. He shook his head.

"I don't know," he said, staring through the bus windshield. "He's just talking to Jared. Wait." As Scott said that, the Sheriff jolted, grabbing his radio. Stiles stiffened, and Scott leaned over the bars, peering through the bus windows. "There's something in the box, but it's not a bomb."

"Then what the hell is it?"

My question was answered a second later, when Deputy Parrish approached the front windshield from inside the bus and held up a small object, visible for all to see.

A name plate. Sheriff Stilinski's name plate.

After a long second of silence, the Sheriff whipped out his phone and dialled, holding up a finger when Stiles jumped over the bars and approached his dad, wanting answers. After he hung up, Scott leaned forward listening in, before the blood began to drain from his face.

"That can't be good," I murmured.

"It's not," Jackson said from behind me. "There is a bomb, but it's not here. It's at the station."

"The police station?"

Scott nodded, turning to me. "Yeah. And I think the Sheriff might have been the target."

* * *

 **I'll be honest, I didn't even try to proofread this.**

 **Big shout out to everyone who has reviewed any of my stories so far, they really keep me going, and I don't know where I'd be without any of you. I sincerely appreciate every single one of them. Also, again, I'm very sorry this has taken me so long (I could have had a baby in the time it's taken me to post this chapter). Thanks for sticking with me, I love you!**

 **Thanks for reading, guys. Stay Fetch.**


	7. If Anyone Asks, it Hurt Just a Little

**Hello, friends!**

 **Big thank you to AshleyMarieD and OneWhoReadsTooMuch for reviewing on the last chapter! Ashley, my bae, I'm glad I'm back too, it's been far too long, and I forget how much I love it! And OWRTM (that's your nickname from now on), it's really nice to meet you! I've seen that you've favourited this entire series, which is** _ **awesome**_ **, and I'm glad you love Amber as much as I do.**

 **I really appreciate all the support I get from you guys, and sometimes it overwhelms me with how much you love the series and the characters. I used to be in love with stories on here, and I would write similar reviews to show the writers how much I enjoyed and adored the stuff they wrote, and to be on the other side of that is absolutely crazy. So thank you.**

 **I don't own Teen Wolf. Shock Horror.**

* * *

By the time I had gotten to the police station, disaster had already struck.

Large splinters of wood and shards of glass lay all around the main room, desks broken into pieces, the walls badly damaged. But worst of all was the Sheriff's office. If he had been in there…

I saw Scott stand from across the room, his face blank and deathly pale.

"Scott?" I said quietly, taking a few slow steps towards him. He looked up at me, swallowing hard. I peeked passed him, to what he had just risen from, and saw Stiles leaning over a deputy, covered in blood and unmoving.

"He's dead," Scott told me plainly. "I was taking his pain, and then… I just went. All of his pain went away, and it's like… It's like I could feel him dying." I didn't really know what to say to that. Nothing would help.

"Scott," I started, unsure of how to continue.

"Scott!" someone else called from behind me, attracting our attention from the gloomy subject. Kira turned a corner and stopped short, a little breathless. "The Oni are coming," she said, and with that, Scott jumped back into action.

"Stiles!" he called, grabbing his friend's attention. "We need to go. Now." Stiles jumped up, followed Kira out of the building, but when I didn't follow, Scott lagged behind. "Are you coming?"

I shook my head. "I'm gonna stay here," I told him, looking around all of the chaos in the room. "Maybe I can help out here." Scott nodded. "Stay safe."

"You too," he said, before ducking out and following Stiles and Kira.

I turned, looked towards the Sheriff. Without saying a word, he gestured over to two figures in the corner and went back to the deputy he was desperately ordering to stay awake. Upon approach, I realised I recognised the two figures.

"Mr Argent?" I said as I got closer, confused. "Derek?"

"Amber," Mr Argent greeted me, lowering Derek slowly into a wrecked chair. "What are you doing here?" I snorted, then gestured to the room around us. He nodded. "Yeah, okay. Can you, uh…" He looked around the room, stepped a little closer. "Is there anything you can do?" I had forgotten, for a while, that he knew about me. It's not like I showed off my abilities around just _anyone_ , but, of course, his father had called me out on my heritage last semester, after he'd abducted half of my friends and locked them in the basement. I shrugged.

"I don't know," I told him, looking around the room. "I ain't great at healing."

Derek laughed, a little pained. "I hear your speciality lies elsewhere," he said, groaning. "So how come you didn't see this coming?"

I knew he meant it as a joke, but the words still stung a little.

I sniffed, moved around the chair to look at Derek's injuries. The many bloody shards of glass piercing his back didn't look particularly comfortable.

"Take them out," he said quietly, watching the people running around the room. No one even thought to pay any attention to the trio huddled in the corner.

"It'll probably hurt," I warned him, despite his sneer.

"No more than I'm hurting right now."

I nodded, because, yeah, it looked pretty damn painful, and, one by one, starting pulling out each of the individual shards of glass. With each tug, Derek hissed.

"So, here's a question," I piped up, eager to distract the both of us from the gruesome job. "Why are the two of you at the police station?" I asked them, raising an eyebrow at Allison's father. "Together?"

The older man smiled, almost coldly. "Your friend framed us for murder."

I snorted. "Aside from Lydia, I don't have any friends smart enough to do that."

"Stiles," Derek muttered, wincing. I sighed, realising now what Mr Argent had meant.

"Whatever did all of this isn't Stiles," I reminded the both of them, ignoring Mr Argent's short laugh.

"Well, it's using his body to do all of its dirty work," he argued, gesturing around the room. "Including getting us arrested, probably so that we would be here when that bomb went off."

I cleared my throat, deliberately trying to ignore everything happening around me. All the blood. It wasn't Stiles.

"Scott thinks it might have been targeting the Sheriff," I said, pulling a little too hard on one piece of glass, if Derek's responding growl was anything to go by. "His name plate was in a decoy bomb on a bus at school."

Mr Argent nodded, thoughtful. "Probably trying to get to Stiles. Break him down from the inside."

I didn't want to think about what that entailed.

"Where's Stiles now?" Derek asked, rolling his shoulders as I pulled out the last few remaining pieces.

"He's gone with Scott and Kira," I told them both, gesturing back towards the way they had left. "Our little Japanese demon friends are after whatever's inside him, so they're trying to keep him away from them. Keep him safe."

"Wherever they went, it won't hold up for long," Mr Argent said, shaking his head as he stood. "Not against the Oni."

"What else are they supposed to do?" I asked him, only mostly rhetorical. "Just hand him over to them?"

When he didn't respond, not verbally, anyway, I laughed.

"You have got to be kidding me."

"They're trying to kill whatever's inside of him," he reasoned, crossing his arms.

"By killing _him_ ," I argued, not sure I was even believing what he was getting at. "They would kill Stiles."

"And what is one person's life compared to all the ones that have been lost since that _thing_ inside Stiles took over?" he asked me, raising his eyebrows challengingly. "Who are you, who are any of us, to decide that these people deserve to die more than Stiles?"

"Chris," Derek said, raising from his seat when I didn't respond. "Stiles is seventeen. He's just a kid."

Mr Argent nodded. "Yeah, he's just a kid. And a mother of two young _kids_ died at the hospital the other night. They have to grow up without a mom." He turned back to me, his eyes hard. "By keeping Stiles _safe_ , you're allowing that to happen. Just keep that in mind."

Mr Argent walked away after that comment, the following silence allowing them to fully sink in. I shook my head as Derek opened his mouth after a sigh, attempting to say something nearly comforting, I'm sure. Last semester, I'd had a similar moment, almost an epiphany. The whole time that Jackson had been the kanima, killing people at his master's' bidding, it hadn't hit me that the only way to stop him was to kill him, until someone did. Maybe Chris Argent was right. Maybe this scenario wasn't so different from that one. Maybe there was only one way for this whole nightmare to end.

"Amber," Derek said quietly, hurriedly, as a troubled deputy made his way through the wreckage to us. "Stiles doesn't have to die. We just need to figure out how to help him."

I scoffed. "And how do you suggest we do that?" I asked him, sniffing, ignoring the lump in my throat. "Do you have an instruction manual on how to safely remove a japanese demon from a teenage boy?"

Derek glared a little. "No, I don't," he admitted, cutting me off before I could say anything _too_ sarcastic. "But maybe you do," he said, the suggestion in his tone heavy. I shook my head.

"I spent the whole weekend looking through that book," I told him, shrugging as the deputy stopped beside Derek, turning him to handcuff his hands behind his back. "There's nothing in there about any of this. Maybe the, uh..." I eyed the deputy carefully, but he didn't seem to be paying any attention to either of us. "Maybe the people who wrote it didn't know anything about this kind of thing."

Derek widened his eyes pointedly as the deputy began to drag him away. "Maybe you should ask them and find out," he said through his teeth, raising his eyebrows at me once more before disappearing down the corridor.

While I did wonder, oh, did I wonder, how on earth Derek even knew to think like that, I wasn't going to waste time finding out. I had work to do.

* * *

As I approached the tall, terrifying gates, my stomach started to turn. For a long moment, peering up at the creepy old building that was Eichen House, I started to consider everything. This would probably be a bad idea. This would probably go horribly, gruesomely wrong. And, as I thought that, I started backwards, stepping away, back towards my car, parked a short while down the road. I thought that there were probably plenty of ways to help Stiles. And if not, maybe this wasn't the way to do it anyway.

And then I saw her, and I froze.

"Don't be scared," she said softly, comfortingly, with such familiarity that my heart ached. She smiled, turning towards the woods, the whispering in the wind, in the trees. I took a few steps closer, wary, and she tipped her head. "It's this way," she said, gesturing back through the trees, the darkness deeper there. I could almost feel it.

When I turned back to her, she was gone.

I made the journey alone, following the whispering around me, and trying not to let the craziness of it all terrify me. The leaves crunched underfoot, and the weather began to change, little drops of rain landing all around me, dripping onto my face, my shoulders. But I wasn't to be deterred. Not now. Not when I saw so close.

When the woods cleared to make way for a ruined old building, the chill in my bones seemed to grow colder somehow. I don't know if it was the sight in front of me, the burnt remains of what could have once been a place of worship, of faith, the moon casting its light down on it. Maybe it was the perfect circle of dead grass and trees surrounding it, or the utter silence, not a bird or bug anywhere close by. Or, more likely, it was the way the whispering seemed to flow through me the closer I got.

The door, when I finally reached it and tried to enter the building, didn't budge. Not even a little. I stepped back a little, brow furrowed, and lifted my hands, concentrating.

Still nothing.

I huffed, taking another step back, and folding my arms over my chest.

"Looks like you could use a hand," a voice said behind me, the faint familiarity making me smile, even before I had turned to see the face.

"Jeremy Gilbert," I said, shaking my head as he grinned. "As I live and breathe."

"It's good to see you too, Wilson," he said, approaching me and opening his arms wide and enveloping me in a tight hug.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him, not unhappily. During my visit to Mystic Falls over the summer, Jeremy had been welcoming, friendly and more than a fountain of supernatural knowledge, and we'd kept in contact since then.

"Your brother called me," he said, shrugging a shoulder as he stepped back. "Werewolves and vampires are really nothing new to me," he admitted. "But demons? They're a whole new world. We figured maybe you could use some help."

I frowned, narrowing my eyes at him. "We?" He smiled again, stepping to the side so I could see the other figure, standing amongst the dead foliage. I smiled.

I had never met Bonnie Bennett in person. While I had visited the small town she called home, she had been away, spending her vacation travelling the country with her mom. But I had heard enough about her, seen enough photos, to know the witch when I saw her.

"Bonnie," I greeted, trying desperately to reign in the grin. She didn't seem fazed.

"It's nice to finally meet you," she said, wandering a little closer, almost shyly. "Jeremy has told me a lot about you."

"The feeling is _very_ mutual," I said, laughing a little. It was nice, very nice, to finally meet another witch, someone who could understand. From her smile, I think she understood.

"So, can I ask what the hell you're doing here?" Jeremy asked, looking up at the old, crumbling building. "Not exactly the kind of place I imagined you spending your free time."

I scoffed. "Yeah, me neither." I turned back to them, biting my lip. "You know those demons Josh told you about?" Jeremy nodded, glanced back at Bonnie's concerned face. "They're after one of my friends."

"Why?" Bonnie asked me, her eyes wide.

I swallowed. "Because there's some sort of demon in him, too. And if we don't find a way to get it out of him, they're going to kill him."

For a moment, they were both silent. Then Bonnie nodded, eyeing Jeremy for a second. "What do you need?" she asked me, determined.

"I ain't sure," I admitted, smiling a little. "But I think, whatever it is, is in there." I gestured over my shoulder, at the decrepit building. "But the door won't budge."

Jeremy snorted quietly. "You do remember you have magical powers, right?" I raised an eyebrow.

"I'm aware," I told him, nodding my head as Bonnie smiled. "But I still can't open it."

"It might be spelled shut," Bonnie suggested, walking closer to examine the big doors. "What makes you think whatever you need is in here anyway?"

I bit my lip, self-conscience. "My mom," I said, shrugging a shoulder when Jeremy raised his eyebrows. Bonnie didn't react. I suppose it was all old news to her. "A little while back, she told me, should I need any help, then I should come here. Well, she said to go to that hospital back there…"

"But you followed the voices," Bonnie said quietly, her eyes distant. I nodded, surprised. "I can hear them, too."

"What are they saying?" Jeremy asked, stepping closer to the other witch, curious. Bonnie rested a hand against the thick wooden door, closed her eyes.

Then, she stepped back, watching as, ever so slowly, the door creaked open.

She smiled. "They're saying we can go in now."

* * *

"I'm okay," Stiles tried, changing direction when I raised an eyebrow. "Well, right now, I am. Mostly."

I shook my head, ignoring him after the conversation we'd just had about his less-than-optimistic MRI results and the ensuing chaos, and continuing to flick through the grimoire in my lap as I sat on his bed, deliberately keeping my mouth closed.

"I don't think there's going to be anything of use in there, Am," Stiles said, sighing. I had to agree. There wasn't anything in there that could help Stiles. At least, there was nothing obvious. But that wasn't what I was looking for.

After everything that had happened last night, I desperately wanted to talk to someone, to tell them all about the voices of the witches all around the ruined old church, the chanting, the feeling of power that I could feel sweeping through me as I sat on the dusty floor. I had never experienced anything quite like it, and I needed to share it with someone. And I wanted that someone to be Stiles.

"Hey, Stiles," I started, biting my lip nervously. He looked up, quirked his eyebrows, waited. "I kinda want to talk to you about something, but I ain't entirely convinced it's a great idea."

Stiles frowned. "That's a very vague and ominous-sounding start to a conversation, Wilson," he said, getting up from his desk chair to sit on the bed, facing me. I smiled.

"Something happened last night," I tried again. "It was pretty cool, and, potentially, it could be helpful." I turned to Stiles, shrugging. "But I don't know…"

I wasn't sure how to finish the sentence, so Stiles did. "Don't tell me," he said, shaking his head. "If it's anything that I could use against you, or anything I could use to do bad things, don't tell me. Just because it's asleep now, doesn't mean it won't know what I do when it wakes up."

" _If_ it wakes up," I corrected, determined. "Maybe we'll figure this out before it does."

I could tell Stiles wanted to argue further, but he managed to stop himself, if only for my sanity. " _If_ it wakes up, I don't want it to know anything that might put you in danger," he said, raising his eyebrows at me. "Got it?" I nodded, slowly, before turning back to my grimoire. "And you should probably take that home with you," Stiles continued, gesturing to the book in my lap. "That thing should not have access to it."

"Yeah," I agreed, huffing. "That's probably the best idea you've had in awhile."

* * *

"Please tell me this is a joke," I bit out, my arms folded tightly over my chest. "Please."

Scott's face, however, told me that no matter how much I pleaded, this situation was very, very real.

"He thought it was for the best," Scott explained, sheepish. "His dad's going to LA for the weekend to speak to a doctor, and Stiles didn't think it would be safe for him to stay home, completely unattended, when the nogitsune could wake up at any second."

"People have died in there, Scott," I tried, pacing my living room as Josh made some very welcome coffee. "Lots of people. And are we forgetting about Barrow? He was kept in there after he killed half a dozen teenagers, and grew a fly-filled tumor in his stomach. It's not a good place for anyone to be."

"I'm sorry," Bonnie interrupted from the couch, laughing a little. "Fly-filled tumor?"

"I will fill you in on all of that later," Josh promised, handing her and Jeremy a steaming mug each. "And after I've done so, you're gonna hate me."

"Why didn't he tell anyone?" I asked aloud, though mostly talking to myself. "Why didn't he tell me?"

Scott came closer, putting his hands on my shoulder. "Because he knew you'd try to talk him out of it. He thinks Eichen House is the safest option for everyone right now. Maybe it is."

"Scott," I chided, but he shook his head.

"He hurt a lot of people," he reminded me, in case I had, somehow, forgotten. "He _killed_ people. And he's scared that he's gonna do it again. This way, at least _we_ are out of his reach."

Josh tutted as he handed me a mug, Scott taking his graciously. "Unless he breaks out." He quickly backed out when Scott and I turned to him, completely unimpressed.

"This was a stupid idea, and when he _does_ get out, I'm going to make sure he knows it," I promised, glaring into my coffee.

"And I'm sure Stiles will appreciate it," Scott said, almost smiling a little. "But, for now, he's okay. Okay?" I nodded, sinking down into the couch. "Okay, now." Scott turned to the strange pair sitting beside me, raised his eyebrows. "Who are you?"

I scoffed a laugh, shaking my head as I set down my coffee. "Sorry. Scott, this is Jeremy and Bonnie. I met Jeremy while I was in Mystic Falls over the summer."

"Oh, yeah," Scott said, recalling a past conversation. "The vampire town."

"That's the one," I nodded, smiling at Jeremy's expression. "He showed me around the place, taught me all about the local folklore, and brought me up to speed on friendly neighbourhood vampires." Scott smiled tightly. It was still a new and slightly uncomfortable subject around here. "And Bonnie here is a witch."

"Really?" Scott asked, perking up as he sat on the coffee table, directly across from her, excited.

"Actually," Bonnie started, wincing at me. "I wanted to talk to you about that."

I huffed. "That doesn't sound ominous at all."

"You know how I told you that Bonnie was travelling with her mom over the summer?" Jeremy piped up. I nodded. "That was a lie."

Bonnie was quiet for a moment, and I waited. "So where were you?" I asked eventually, when she remained silent.

"I was in Mystic Falls," Bonnie said, her eyes wide and oh-so innocent. "But also… not."

I tipped my head, waiting for her to continue. In the end, Jeremy sighed, and leant forward.

"Bonnie was dead," he said, matter-of-fact. "She had died just before graduation, and she didn't want anyone to know. So I lied and told everyone that she had gone on vacation with her mom."

"Wait," Scott asked as I tried to wrap my mind around all of this. "You were dead?" Bonnie nodded. "But… you're not dead." Bonnie shook her head.

"I… I came back, I guess," she said, shrugging a shoulder like it was no big deal.

"How is that even possible?" Josh asked, dropping down into the adjacent armchair.

Bonnie shrugged again, very aware of all the eyes on her. "Have you ever heard of a witch named Qetsiyah?" I nodded, slowly. "And you know that she's the reason that we have the Other Side?" I nodded again, turning to Scott, who nodded too, quickly.

"Stiles filled me in last week," he told me, shrugging.

Bonnie continued. "Well, she brought me back to life. Sort of."

"She lived, like, two thousand years ago," I pointed out, shaking my head. "How is she even al… Wait, 'sort of'?"

Bonnie nodded, blowing out a breath. "The spell that was used to create the Other Side needed to be bound to something in this realm, an anchor. And Qetsiyah made _me_ that anchor when the previous one died." Bonnie let us ingest that information for a second. "It meant that I could have a foot in both realms. While I am still _technically_ dead, I can be here. I can talk to my friends, they can hear me, I can touch people, I can feel things. It's like I never died. Except for a few things. Mainly… I no longer have my magic."

I took a deep breath, frowning. "At all?" I asked, and she shook her head.

"It was one of the consequences of coming back," she said, smiling a little sadly. "It was kind of worth it."

"Don't you miss it?" I asked her, surprised.

"Every day," she said quietly, shrugging a shoulder delicately. "But I also missed life. I missed my friends. Jeremy was the only person that I could talk to. And, I mean, he's great, but he was kinda driving me crazy." I smiled, watching as the man in question nudged her, pulling a giggle from the sad moment.

"Wait, hang on," Scott said, raising a hand. "How… How could you speak to Jeremy, but not anyone else?"

"Oh, yeah," I said, shifting to face Scott, smiling. "Jeremy sees dead people."

For a moment, Scott was quiet. He stared, first at me, then Bonnie, Jeremy, and back to me. Then he blew out a breath.

"I have no idea what is happening anymore."

* * *

That night, after I had set Bonnie and Jeremy up in the guest room and made sure they were comfortable, I got into my car and left.

I wasn't entirely sure that I was doing what I thought I was doing until I pulled up alongside the Stilinski house, the Sheriff's truck in the driveway. Don't get me wrong, I loved the Sheriff. I had known him even before I almost tolerated Stiles, and his was a face that I was always happy to see. But I had never really spent any time with him without Stiles, or Scott, or a deputy, or a life hanging in the balance. And I had certainly never gone to his home to see him. I didn't know if it would be awkward, uncomfortable, a waste of both of our time.

But I _did_ know that I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight without making sure that he was okay.

So, I got out of my car and marched up the path, onto the porch, and before I could talk myself out of it, I knocked on the door. It took a minute, but the Sheriff finally pulled the front door open, and just stared for a second, before stepping back and making room for me to come inside.

More than anything, the man looked exhausted.

"Stiles isn't here," he said, not unkindly, narrowing his eyes a little as he shut the door behind me.

I nodded. "I know," I told him, wringing my hands together. "That's… that's why I'm here. Are you okay?" I asked him, mentally berating myself afterwards. What a stupid question.

The argument going on inside my head must have showed on my face, because the Sheriff almost smiled, and nodded.

"I'll be fine," he said, shrugging a shoulder. "Stiles will be fine. It's just…"

He paused, took a deep breath. He didn't continue, so I did.

"It was a stupid idea," I said plainly. He nodded, vigorously.

"It _was_ a stupid idea," he said, lifting his hands, agreeing. "I tried telling him. And when I was signing the paperwork, I… I couldn't leave him there. I couldn't. And we forgot his pillow. And I wanted to bring him home, but…"

"But he refused," I finished, nodding my head. "If that boy is anything, he's stubborn as a mule."

The Sheriff laughed a little, breathing in deeply. "Just like his mother," he sighed, shaking his head. "Always just like his mother."

"He'll be okay," I said after a moment of sad silence. The Sheriff nodded. "Maybe this is for the best, for now. It'll keep him safe while we get a chance to figure out how to help him." He nodded again, sniffing. "And we _will_ figure it out."

The Sheriff watched me for a second, then smiled. It wasn't a happy smile, but it was something. "Thank you for checking up on me, Amber."

"You're very welcome, Sheriff," I said, making my way back to the door, the Sheriff pulling it open for me. "I think I needed it too."

I took a step, ready to leave the house, but something stopped me. So, instead, I turned back to the man behind me, and before I could think better of it, I stepped closer, wrapping my arms around him, and held tight. He let out a breath, heavy, and did the same, holding me close for a moment.

And _that_ was exactly what I needed.

* * *

I was sitting in my room later that night, staring out onto the preserve from the cushioned seat in my window, unable to sleep. It had to be past one in the morning by this time, and I was still wide, _wide_ awake.

How could I not be? Stiles was stuck in a literal house of horrors, with not even his pillow to comfort him. And I still knew no way of helping him. Sure, the witches had done _something_ , but neither Bonnie nor I knew _what_ , and my mom was nowhere to be found after she'd led me away from Eichen House. With no way of knowing what the witches had done, or even if they'd actually helped at all, I still couldn't help him.

Worse still, we had no way of communicating with him. He didn't have access to his phone in there, no way of making sure he was okay, helping him through his time in there. He was completely alone.

Even as I thought this, a _thump_ from beside me startled me from the almost trance that I had been in. I turned quickly, saw my grimoire lying open on my desk. I was sure, _sure_ , that it hadn't been open the last time I had passed it. Almost sure. Less sure by the second.

I got up from my seat, approached the book slowly. Lying flat, the top of the page it had opened to read ' _Communication Spell_ ', and that was more than enough of a sign for me.

I got to work, grabbing a sheet of paper and a pen, and lighting the candle sat on the desk. Now I just needed something of Stiles'...

I looked around my room, discouraged for a long time, thinking that my plan had gone out the window. As I collapsed onto my bed, huffing, I could just faintly make out voices in the next room, tinny and muffled through the wall. _Hey_ , I thought to myself, _at least Josh is awake in the dead of the night too_.

Then, with a jolt, I jumped off the bed and threw the door open, doing the same to Josh's a second later. He startled, catching himself before he yelled in fear, a dark, shadowy corridor filling his computer screen, controller in his hand.

"What is that?" I asked him, pointing at the screen, a little breathless.

"Yeah, good evening to you too," Josh said, a hand to his chest. When I growled, he drew back. "It's _Outlast_. Why?"

"The game you borrowed from Stiles?"

Josh nodded, confused when I jumped up to his desk and kissed his head, a grin on my face.

"What is the matter with you?" he asked me, watching me carefully as I picked up the game case from beside the computer, skipping back out of the room.

"Many, many things, Joshua," I told him, grinning as I poked my head in the gap of the door as I closed it. "Also, something's coming," I said, gesturing back to the screen. Josh whimpered a little and turned back to the game quickly as I closed the door and headed back to my room, the case in hand. It wasn't much, and it certainly wasn't sentimental, but it would do. It would have to do.

I sat down at my own desk, mulling over all the things I wanted to say, all the things I wanted to tell him. Too many things. In the end, I settled on something simple.

 _This plan was stupid, Stilinski._

 _Be careful._

After nodding at the message that portrayed all of _nothing_ of what I was feeling, I scrunched the paper in my hand, focused on the candle flickering in front of me, the game case in my free hand. I breathed slowly, closed my eyes, thought of Stiles, and seconds later, I felt the heat in my hands, heard the crackling as the paper began to burn away. Then, when the smell of smoke started to disperse, I opened my eyes, the charred paper scraps in my hand the only remainders of the message. I smiled. Without his pillow, Stiles would surely be awake to receive the message, even at this time.

At least he would know that I couldn't sleep either.

* * *

"Are you sure this plan is going to work?" I asked Lydia the next day, waiting for Scott, Jackson and the twins to turn up at the Argent apartment. She sighed.

"It should do," she said, tipping her head. "As long as everyone follows it." I snorted. "Yeah, I know," she said, agreeing with my doubt.

"So, these werewolves don't turn into full wolves on the full moon?" Jeremy asked Allison, who smiled at his amazement. She shook her head.

"And they can learn to control their shifting, so they can shift at will."

"That is so cool," Bonnie said gleefully. "We have a werewolf friend, but he's completely different. All the werewolves we've met are."

Lydia chimed in, leaning against the wide desk. "Some werewolves can transform fully, but it's very rare with the kind of werewolves that we have around here," she said, shrugging a shoulder. "Only very powerful werewolves can do it."

"This is awesome," Jeremy said, grinning at Bonnie, both of their expressions matching. "Crazy, totally, but _so_ awesome."

"Okay," I said, wandering up to Allison who turned her attention from the awed newcomers to focus on me. "So, you attach a GPS tracker to the armoured car that they're using to move Katashi's finger, the twins make it look like they have been in an accident on their bikes…"

Allison nodded. "Cue big distraction in the form of bleeding, crying, near death, whatever is necessary."

"And Scott gets into the back of the truck, gets the finger, gets the hell out." Allison nodded again.

"It's gonna work," she said, her eyes earnest. "We're gonna get that scroll, and we're gonna figure out how to help Stiles." She looked at me, her eyes promising, comforting. I managed to nod. She looked up at a knocking, turning to smile at Bonnie and Jeremy, who squealed a little. "That'll be the werewolves."

* * *

The theft, surprise, surprise, did not go to plan.

At least, that was what I took from Scott's explanation when he met me at the animal clinic.

"But, hey," he said, smiling as he rooted around in his pocket, pulling out a small - no, _miniscule_ \- roll of paper. "We got the scroll."

"Well, then," Deaton said, holding open the small gate separating the waiting room and the back rooms. "Let's take a look at it."

A few moments later, after Deaton had been quietly examining the scroll for too long for my short patience, I began tapping my foot. Deaton simply raised an eyebrow, not even looking up.

"What does it say?" Scott asked, only a few seconds later. Deaton shrugged slightly.

"Not much," he admitted, shaking his head, finally looking up at Scott. "However…"

"However is good," Scott said, turning to almost smile at me.

Deaton continued. "It does say that one way to expel a nogitsune is to change the body of the host."

"Change the body?" Scott repeated, his eyebrows low.

"What does that even mean?" I asked Deaton, already sure that I wasn't going to like the answer.

"It means we have to change Stiles' body," Deaton said, his eyes wide. "The real question is _how_."

Scott looked up at Deaton, at me, his eyes carefully guarded. He took a deep breath. Then… "We turn him into a werewolf."

I was silent for a moment, the weight of the suggestion hanging in the air, before I laughed. I could almost _feel_ Stiles' disapproval.

"No," I said, shaking my head, absolutely clear. "No. It ain't happening."

"Amber," Deaton started, turning to me, tipping his head. I cut him off.

" _Not_ happening," I said again, adamant.

"What if it's the only way?" Scott said, shrugging a shoulder.

"It's not." It couldn't be. "There's something else, we just haven't found it yet."

"Amber…"

"Do you really think Stiles would want this?" I asked Scott, gesturing to the werewolf, his shoulders sagging. "Yeah, it works on you, and it surprisingly works on Jackson, but Stiles is human, and that's how he should stay."

"I know Stiles wouldn't want this," Scott answered, crossing his arms. "We've had that conversation. But we don't have a choice anymore. It's change him, or, one way or the other, the Stiles we know dies."

I wasn't really listening anymore. Partially because I didn't like what Scott was telling me. But, mostly, I had tuned out to concentrate on the whispering I could hear, seeping in from the open windows. It sounded… It sounded almost like screaming.

"Stiles," I heard myself whisper as footsteps approached me from behind, Scott almost coming into focus at my side.

"What is it?" Scott asked, his voice panicked. "Is Stiles okay?"

I felt the tears burning my eyes, building in the back of my throat, felt my bottom lip tremble just a touch. I shook my head. "He let it in," I told Scott, moments before the world around me went dark.

* * *

When I woke up, it took my more than a few moments to realise that I was in my own room. Jackson was curled up on the bed beside me, still sleeping soundly, and, when I pulled myself up, I noticed Scott, barely managing to keep himself from rolling off the side of the large window seat in his sleep. He stirred, though, as I smiled a little at the sight.

"Hey," he said softly when he saw me, rubbing his tired eyes like a four year old. "You're up. You had us worried for a minute, there."

I smiled, tight. "Yeah, sorry about that." Jackson began to wake beside me, his moans at the bright sunlight streaming in through the wide windows making Scott chuckle. I raised an eyebrow at Scott expectantly, widening my eyes a little. "Any news?"

Scott sighed, getting up to make his way over to the bed, dropping down at my feet. "Stiles broke out of Eichen House."

I swallowed. "Stiles did? Or the Nogitsune?"

Scott's lack of a response was all the answer I needed.

"So what now?" I asked, slumping back into the headboard.

Scott looked to Jackson, tipped his head. "We're gonna go out looking for him. We can find him."

"And then what?" I asked, shaking my head. "We ask him politely to give Stiles back? Somehow, I can't imagine that would work."

"We have to at least try," Scott argued, sighing. "We'll figure out what to do when we find him _when_ we find him." Scott eyed me for a second, expecting me to argue. But despite my recent nap, I was far too tired to. "Okay," he said nodding. "Good." A second later, just after both Scott and Jackson jerked up and their ears twitched, a knock sounded at the door. Scott stood and made his way to the bedroom door, opening it slightly, before a frown came down across his face.

"Who is it?" I asked him, sitting up straight in curiosity.

Scott was quiet, confused. Then… "It's Malia."

* * *

"We found this on the dead body," Malia said, laying the sheathed sword on the kitchen bar. Daddy groaned in the kitchen, hanging his head. "I thought it might be useful."

Scott nodded, picking it up and examining it. "I think I might know someone who would agree with you."

"What were you even doing in that place?" I asked Malia, watching her face turn shadowy, guarded.

"After being gone for so long, after all the lies we had to tell my dad to explain it, he thought I could use the professional help," she said, shrugging a shoulder. "And, honestly, I couldn't look him in the eye and pretend I wasn't to blame for killing his whole family anymore."

"Malia…"

"Stiles said you could help me learn to control the shift," Malia said, interrupting. It was a sore subject, obviously. "To turn into a coyote whenever I wanted to."

Scott's eyes widened for a second. "Uh. I mean, not a _full_ coyote. Not like you were. But I can help you learn to shift like we do," he said, gesturing to Jackson and himself.

Malia nodded, looking between the pair. "It's a start."

* * *

Everyone had spent the last 24 hours looking for Stiles. Scott, Jackson and the twins had been out all night, Lydia and Allison were sweeping the streets, even Jeremy and Bonnie had helped out, and as soon as Mr Argent and Derek got out of prison, they were in on it too.

The whole thing almost felt like Deja Vu. And it was exhausting.

I woke up the next morning feeling like I'd been hit by a rather large semi truck. So, in my usual fashion, I decided to work out my frustrations and pent up emotions with a run. I pulled on my running shoes, pulled my hair pack into a ponytail and slipped out of the house before anyone had even woken up.

The morning was fresh, dew still on the grass surrounding the house, the sun bright in the sky, birds in the trees. I lost myself in the crunch of the leaves underfoot, the ache in my legs, the music in my ears. It was beautiful, and exactly what I needed.

And then, as I broke into a small, familiar clearing, I slowed, pulling my headphones out and taking a minute to just breathe. To feel the pain in my chest as I remembered how, just a few weeks ago, we had all sat in this very clearing, full of life and love for each other. The world hadn't seemed quite so bleak in the way it did now. I approached the campfire, the fallen logs still arranged around it exactly as we had left them. I almost smiled.

That was, until, something sickeningly familiar caught my eye, sitting in the middle of the ashes on the fire.

My grimoire.

Before I really got the chance to even begin to comprehend what was happening, how my grimoire had gotten there, _who_ had put it there, I felt a chill wash over me, goosebumps appearing on every inch of my skin. It was helpful that I didn't need to turn to know what was behind me; I was too petrified to move.

"It was a nice moment, wasn't it?" I heard Stiles' voice say, small, barely audible footsteps approaching me from behind. "All of you, the whole _pack_ , together, celebrating life, enjoying each other's company."

He came to a stop beside me, looking out to the campfire, that beautiful view of the town in the background. If I wasn't mistaken, that was almost a smile on his face. "It's a shame it couldn't last."

"Nothing pleasant lasts for long in this town," I murmured, unable to stop myself. He, Stiles, whatever it was, seemed to appreciate the comment.

"I believe you're right," he said, that awful smile on his face as he wandered over to the campfire. That wasn't Stiles' smile. "But don't worry. Neither will any of you." I could tell the instant he turned to me, the smile on his face twisted and evil, his body relaxed and calm, almost emotionless, in a way that Stiles never was.

He intended to kill me.

"I'm sure your families will remember you fondly," he continued, kicking at my grimoire, turning my stomach. "For a time, at least. Eventually, they won't even be able to recall your face on your birthday, at Christmas, when they see that auburn hair in a crowd. And isn't that just the most painful thing of all? To be forgotten?"

I swallowed. "You sound as though you're talking from experience."

Stiles, or the demon that had taken him over, smiled. "I am. And forgetting about me is going to be the most dangerous thing they've ever done," he told me, reaching into his pocket and pulling out something small, silver. With a flick of his wrist, the object opened, and a second later, a bright, orange flame rose up. Before I could even breathe, he dropped the lighter, letting it fall down onto the campfire, the dry leaves and branches catching quickly around the grimoire.

In a second, I lifted a hand, muttered a quiet, efficient " _suctus incendia_ " and put out the fire. The demon across from me sighed, quick and angry.

"And this is why I've never liked witches."

I should have run. I know it now, and I knew it then; I should have run. Run far, and fast. But my feet were planted firmly to the floor, taking root in the dirt, even as Stiles, the Nogitsune, approached me, slowly, menacingly.

"You're all the same, you know that?" he asked me, eyes narrowing as he stepped closer. "You're not the first witch I've met, not by a long shot. And you all seem to think you're _so_ powerful, so brave, staring death in the face over and over. All in the attempt to do the _right thing_."

"Someone has to," I said, barely more than a whisper.

He smiled. "And that someone usually ends up dead. Take your mother, for example." He seemed to feel the anger in my chest, the pain there. Seemed to revel in it. "She tried to do 'the right thing'; tried to protect her pack, her alpha, her family. And where did she end up?" He paused for a second, letting it all sink in. "That's right. You don't even know. She's probably scattered over half of Tennessee by now."

The Nogitsune stopped in front of me, stared at me for the longest moment, contemplating… something. And, as he did, all I could do was look deep into those tawny eyes and hope that, deep down, a piece of Stiles was still there. That he was holding on. Then…

"I'm bored of this now," he said shortly, before he jolted towards me. I caught it, though, caught the tone in his voice, anticipated the move, and held my hands up and muttered a ' _motus_ ' under my breath, and threw him back, not waiting to see where he landed before I turned and bolted, dashing through the clearing and back into the treeline.

I didn't make it far.

One second I was running, faster than I've ever run before, and the next I was staring up at the sky, a sharp pain in my throat and the wind knocked right out of me. Before I could piece together what had happened, how he had moved so fast, I was being dragged across the forest floor by my hair, the pain in my back and my arms from the debris-ridden floor dulled by the agony in my head.

Finally, _finally,_ he let go, allowing me to drop fully to the floor before I managed to catch myself, unable to get to my feet. Instead, he crouched in front of me, his face close to mine. "You are not invincible, Amber."

I laughed, small and bitter, let an arm fall to my side, hand mere inches from his arm. "I don't need to be." His eyes narrowed, unsure, until I whispered a quiet ' _osox_ ', using the distraction of the searing pain in his arm to drag myself away, ignoring my own pain. I was exhausted, physically and emotionally, and I was hurting just about everywhere. It had only been a matter of time before the magic starting pushing back, and now it was catching up with me.

I managed to get to my feet, but only just, and stumbled over to the fire, the grimoire, managing to heave the huge book from the charred kindling and pull it close to my chest, turning to run.

"I'm not done with you," the Nogitsune said, startling me with his appearance directly behind me. Before I could move, before I could even recover from my surprise, I felt something hard and solid hit my stomach, knocking the wind right out of me as I flew backwards. I heard the crack as I hit something, stopping dead mid-flight and dropping to the floor like a rock. If I hadn't been overwhelmed by the excruciating pain, I would have heard my ribs crack.

Stiles, seemingly pleased with his work, plucked my grimoire from the floor and threw it back from where it had come, sending dust and ashes into the air as it landed amongst the camp fire. He looked back to me, raising his eyebrows, almost challenging me to try to get up again as reached for that lighter from the ground, revealing the flame, holding it inches from my grimoire before letting it fall completely, enveloping that book in flames. And, try as I might, I couldn't lift a finger to stop him.

I laid there, in agony all over and bleeding from somewhere, I was sure, as he, _it_ , approached me again, smiling victoriously. He dropped to the ground beside me, watched the covers of the grimoire melt away, the pages within blacken, curling at the edges.

"You were right to take it back," he said quietly after humming in pleasure for a moment or two. "The grimoire. Leaving it with Stiles would have been irresponsible, given the hold I have over him. But, word of advice?" He turned to me, shook his head slowly. "If you're going to try to hide something from a powerful, thousand year old being, you might want to find a better hiding spot than your little brother's bedroom. Or, at least, he should learn to lock his bedroom windows at night. You don't know who might be lurking around outside."

I laughed, the pain in my back and my ribs growing with every movement, every breath. "If you touch my brother…"

"You'll what?" he asked, grabbing my arm and pulling me upright, despite, or maybe because of, my whimpers. There was no way I'd be able to fight him off now. Not in this state. "You'll use magic on me? Because it worked so well for you last time." He smiled again, shifted back to look me head on. "And we both know the more your body weakens, the more your magic does. And the more it hurts you to do it." He leant back, opening his arms wide. "So… Would you like to give it another shot?"

I tried. My mind was foggy, everything hurt, I could taste a lot of blood in my mouth, but I tried. I wanted to save myself, I wanted to live. But, either way, there was no way I would make out of this clearing alive. So, at the very least, I would not be spending my last moments giving this beast exactly what he craved. Pain. Fear. Grief.

"It's not your fault," I said instead, ignoring the blood trickling from my nose. The Nogitsune didn't seem to know what I was talking about, but I hoped he would. I hoped, when this was all over, Stiles would know. "It's not your fault. You didn't do this."

The Nogitsune sighed, tipped his head. "No, but it is his face," he argued. "And your blood will be on _his_ hands." I shook my head, somehow managed to smile.

"That doesn't matter," I said, breathless. For a second, I let myself get lost in those eyes. They weren't his right now, but, maybe one day, if Scott ever figured it out, they would be again. Maybe he'd remember this. "I don't blame you, Stiles."

"Oh, but he will," he said, his hands came to rest on either side of head, fingers splaying over my neck. I didn't fight back. I didn't cry. I didn't beg. Begging would get me nowhere, and I would only be giving him exactly what he wanted.

Then, with a sickening crunch that would never reach my ears, Stiles killed me.

* * *

 **Okay, so I was looking through the timelines for Teen Wolf and Vampire Diaries and the YEARS ARE ALL MESSED UP AND IT'S IMPORTANT TO ME THAT THEY'RE NOT. So, just to be clear (I may have mentioned it before but I'ma say it again, just so I know), Teen Wolf and Vampire Diaries are not taking place in the same year in this fic, for convenience sake. What is 2013 in Teen Wolf is 2011 in Vampire Diaries, which actually makes sense if you keep in mind that the first ep of Teen Wolf was, like, January 2011, and we're currently in the fall of that year. Does that make sense? So, i.e., when Elena and Caroline start the freshman year of college, our friends in Beacon Hills start their Junior year at High School.**

 **Okay. Cool. Glad that's out there.**

 **Thanks for reading, guys. Stay Fetch.**


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